


Feelings

by grimeysociety



Series: Darcyland Cool For The Summer Challenge [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Darcy Lewis Needs a Hug, Darcy Lewis's iPod, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Hawaii, POV Darcy Lewis, Scientist Wrangler Darcy Lewis, Summer Romance, Summer Vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-06-19 17:55:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 23,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15515358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grimeysociety/pseuds/grimeysociety
Summary: During a week-long vacation to Hawaii, Darcy is trying to make the most of it. And she's trying to not catch feelings.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my take on the "August 1: Tropical Island" prompt for the Cool For The Summer Challenge over at fuckyeahdarcylewis.tumblr.com and I honestly never meant for this to be such a lengthy, angsty fic but it still turned out that way!
> 
> Each one of these stories for the challenge is named after a Summer-esque song that I listened to on repeat while I was writing. This one is named after Hayley Kiyoko's "Feelings", which you can listen to/watch [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TV-_Yuc228s). 
> 
> I'm so addicted to Darcy/Steve and I think it shows. I meant this to be just two chapters and it grew to more than 20k words. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy the first day of the challenge!
> 
> P.S. If you want to message me you can [here](https://grimeysociety.tumblr.com/ask) :)

Darcy smashed "reply all" the second her notification popped up.

One week, a whole seven days in motherfucking Hawaii.

Everyone on the compound was invited, and sure, Jane wasn’t there anymore – she’d transferred to London for a while, but Darcy couldn’t care less if she was all by herself, island-hopping.

She wasn’t allowed to use social media anymore, but she was going to email all the coolest photos she could take to her cousins back home to make them jealous but _also_ Jane had to know what she was missing out on.

A few seconds after Darcy sent off her enthusiastic reply, Jane sent another separate email.

It was simply a photograph of her lab’s view of the grey London morning, and Darcy frowned a little.

Darcy couldn’t help herself. She replied immediately:

_Why not come to Hawaii? We can go to a place that serves you margaritas by the gallon while you sit in a pristine pool._

Jane only took another minute to reply:

_Try and induce FOMO all you want, Lewis. I got offered Cambridge._

Darcy gasped.

_Can I call you?_

_If Stark’s paying your phone bills, sure._

Darcy chuckled, and then dialled Jane’s number.

A few seconds later, she picked up.

“It’s my dream job, Darce. I’m not going on vacation when I just got here.”

“Okay,” Darcy said, making a point to sigh dramatically. “It won’t be the same without you.”

Jane snorted. “I know that. You’ll just have to make friends.”

“I have Bruce,” Darcy retorted, feeling defensive.

“Bruce doesn’t count, you work for him.”

Darcy scoffed. “I worked for you! You don’t count?”

“That’s different,” Jane said, and Darcy could picture her waving her hand around dismissively.

Darcy knew what she meant, but it still made her a little anxious. The people she worked with were always intimidating, and they didn’t even mean to be. The idea of trying to bond with any of them, especially any of the administrative staff who were always really strict with paperwork – the idea itself made Darcy cringe.

How was she supposed to enjoy herself if she was worried about what other people thought of her?

She frowned again, contemplating being truly alone in a place like Hawaii. She was happy. But lonely. It was obvious especially whenever Bruce shrank away from her when she was too familiar with him.

She’d touch his arm and he’d recoil, and it did hurt her feelings, even though she knew he just wasn’t into being touchy-feely with everyone.

And that was _fine_ , but Darcy hated feeling like she had no-one.

“Darcy, you okay?”

Jane brought her back, and Darcy cleared her throat.

“I get it. It’s your dream. Stephen Hawking was there. I get it.”

“You’d said that twice, Darce.”

“Yeah, well…”

Darcy got up from her couch and looked out her window, thinking about how different this place was to where Jane was now.

“I miss you.”

“I miss you, too.”

There was a yell outside and Darcy craned her neck. She spotted Sam Wilson throwing Steven Rogers a football. Nothing sinister.

She watched as Steven caught the ball, and then pulled back his arm, which was very toned and striking –

Not that Sam wasn’t nice to look at, but –

“Earth to Darcy,” Jane prompted her.

That would have been the time to wipe her chin if Darcy had been drooling, but apparently her lack of a sex life had not rendered her that desperate.

Yet.

“I’m still here. Just wondering if you’re ever coming back.”

“You know why I wanted to leave.”

Thor. Almost every ounce of misery had boiled down to him in the last couple of years. Not that Jane couldn’t have a life outside her relationship.

She wasn’t the person she was _with_ , and Darcy would physically fight anyone who told her otherwise about her best friend.

It wasn’t about Jane feeling sorry for herself, either. Just having a serious relationship with Thor had become counter-productive.

Jane was the one who broke up with him, and she was still shattered by it.

It made Darcy sad, to see Jane sad.

But she decided to stay on the compound because she was addicted to this life, as well.

She maybe just didn’t have the self-control to want to do the right thing for her, the safe thing.

She liked being a part of this, whatever _this_ was.

“Yeah. I know,” Darcy murmured. She sighed.

There was another shout from outside.

She was still facing the window, and then realized she was probably still in view of the men.

She ducked away, wincing.

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Darcy packed with the kind of joy she hadn’t felt in forever.

Not since she and Jane decided they were going to move to the compound had she felt like this, actually.

She bought a hat. The only hats Darcy ever wore were her beanies, and she’d kind of grown out of those over the years.

She found her contact lenses and got used to wearing those more, anticipating the ocean exploring she’d do, with absolutely zero blurriness.

She bought three different bikinis.

She tried ignoring her patches of cellulite. Those fuckers usually got her down, the way they made her legs look like sausage meat stuffed in a cheesecloth in the wrong light.

She kept checking herself when she had her doubts with Bruce.

Did he actually hate her and not want her around?

So what?

She kept her physical distance from him but was always attentive, making him feel as relaxed as possible in their lab.

Hawaii became the thing she thought about most.

“You excited? Two weeks to go!”

She gave Bruce an exaggerated thumbs up, and he chuckled softly.

“I dunno. There’s crowds.”

“Not if you go to the right places,” Darcy said, opting to point at him instead with her index finger, winking.

“That’s true,” Bruce said.

They were having a tea break and he sipped from Darcy’s Garfield mug, one she had from before college.

She liked sharing things with the people around her, and so slowly Bruce was adopting a lot of her things without complaint.

“I hid around Hawaii for a while,” Bruce added, and Darcy stared at him.

“Oh.”

“So you’re right, there’s plenty of privacy there, too.”

Darcy dropped that line of conversation, tapping her ring on her own mug, a rainbow one she bought last month for Pride.

“You’re going, though, right? Because if you don’t go, I can’t either. Unless you’re going to get a temp.”

“ _No_ ,” Bruce said, slightly louder than necessary. “I don’t want a whole new person here while you’re gone. I want to go, anyway.”

“That’s good!”

Darcy nodded at him encouragingly.

There was a beat.

“Are you going to see Natasha while you’re there?”

“There it is,” Bruce muttered, and he looked up at the ceiling for a second.

Darcy started laughing and then didn’t think she could stop.

It was still a sensitive topic, and since Darcy wanted Bruce to be happy since her job partly depended on his satisfaction, meddling may have been interest of hers for the past few weeks since Jane left.

“It is a romantic place.”

“It’s a total cliché, Darcy,” Bruce retorted.

There was another beat.

“So you and I will be going there for strictly business?” Darcy said, one eyebrow raised. “Sure, boss.”

“Don’t call me that,” Bruce said automatically. “You know it makes me uncomfortable.”

“Some things are worth being uncomfortable for,” Darcy replied, winking again. “Like a moonlit swim with Black Widow.”

Bruce shot her a look. “You’ve never actually met her, have you?”

“What’s to know?” Darcy took another sip of her tea. “I heard you were the one with the commitment issues, anyway.”

“Crossing into a really personal territory, Darcy,” Bruce said.

There was no hint of grumpiness or warning but Darcy knew she was nudging him too much.

“I care if that aspect of your life is neglected,” Darcy said, shrugging a little. “If you’re shitty because of sexual frustration, I’d like to fix that.”

Bruce went pink in the face, and put down his mug and looked away.

“Not like that, Bruce. _Jesus_ ,” Darcy added hastily, knowing how she sounded.

She could imagine a jealous Black Widow chasing after her if she ever found about them hooking up.

But now that she thought about it, she had no idea how Natasha Romanoff would react.

“Actually. Not the worst idea.”

She said it aloud without realizing.

“Darcy, that’s flattering. You’re a beautiful woman –”

“No!” Darcy yelled. “I don’t mean _literally_. Get on my wavelength, my man. Natasha just needs to _think_ we’re hooking up. In Hawaii. And then she’ll pounce on you.”

Bruce surprised her by retorting, “What makes you think I’m incapable of pouncing on her?”

Darcy paused, gaping. “Okay. I’ll stop prying.”

Clearly she had nothing to worry about.

An hour later, Bruce acted like they were still having the same conversation.

He sidled up to her desk, looking over a tiny plastic palm tree she’d stuck to her stapler.

It wasn’t practical, but she saw it at the store the other day and it felt right.

“What about you?”

“Huh?”

Darcy looked up from her paperwork.

“Your – sexual frustration?”

Bruce hesitated, and then his eyes widened a little, realizing they weren’t on the same page.

“I sound like Tony.”

Darcy burst out laughing, Tony Stark’s reputation something no-one could avoid hearing about. At least, it was his reputation before he married Pepper Potts.

There was an awkward silence once Darcy stopped laughing, but she decided to sidestep it and shrugged.

“Uh. Am I frustrated? Sure. But it’s not – it’s not a big deal.”

She didn’t look Bruce in the eye though, and he probably noticed that.

He had called her beautiful before. And that felt nice, but she didn’t have a line of men out the door after her, either.

She did this to herself. She didn’t usually date even when she lived in Puente Antiguo, and her thirst probably showed too much when Thor showed up.

She and Bruce pretty much dropped the sex talk after that.

-

Darcy just focused on trying to save as much money as possible for the trip. She wasn’t paying for her room and most of her food, but if she wanted to sightsee and buy stuff in Hawaii, that was coming out of her wallet.

The night before, she could barely sleep. The excitement was so overwhelming that she FaceTimed Jane, who fortunately had the same shoddy sleep schedule as when she worked with Darcy.

The pixelated face that greeted her was distracted, probably in the middle of writing something when Darcy called.

“Jane? Are you there?”

“Partway.”

There was a clatter, probably a pen falling off Jane’s desk and she cursed under her breath.

Jane’s face changed to pleasant.

“I’m okay. Just busy.”

“You like busy.”

“Yeah, it’s my –” Jane punctuated the words with pointed keystrokes. “ – _thing_. Are you packed for tomorrow?”

“I packed last week.”

“Seriously?”

“What? I was excited.”

“I’m happy for you,” Jane said, but it didn’t sound right.

Darcy frowned. “Uh, okay.”

“What?”

“You could have come to Hawaii. But you wanted to be in London right now. Even though you have an amazing reputation in your field and anybody would be dying to hire you.”

Darcy knew this conversation was going to go one of maybe two different ways. She waited for Jane to speak.

 “You could’ve –”

“What?” Darcy snapped.

“You could’ve come with me. To London. You’re _my_ assistant.”

“Was.”

 Darcy saw Jane’s jaw tick. She was holding back.

Jane looked away.

“I should get going. Go to bed.”

She never said things like that, and Darcy knew Jane was going to shut her out for a while. She wasn’t sure how she was meant to deal with that without crying or lashing out.

“Jane, I wanted to stay. I want to help people.”

“Help people by getting Bruce Banner tea and organize his desk?”

That was a low blow, and completely untrue, and they both knew it.

Darcy was so much more than that when she was Jane’s assistant.

And Darcy had shared with Jane her woes about job insecurity.

“See you, Jane.”

Darcy shut off her phone, tossing it aside on her bed, harrumphing.

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning, Darcy could only think of Jane and how badly she wanted to scream at her for making her guilty about her vacation.

Hadn’t she earned this? She never went anywhere for fun, not even the store.

When she bought that palm tree, that was when she got Bruce a specific brand of granola he liked.

She didn’t do much for herself, and maybe she was sick of making excuses for Jane.

She nearly called her twice, on the verge of apologizing to her even though Darcy knew she wasn’t in the wrong.

She _wanted_ to go to Hawaii. She _wanted_ to stay in America.

If Bruce decided to fire her, maybe she would crawl back to Jane and concede they were better together than apart, but right now she wanted to swim in the ocean and read a book.

With her bags slung over each shoulder, she locked her room and walked off toward fields where the quinjets were kept.

There were a couple dozen people milling around, and Darcy quickly found Bruce and joined him.

He looked like a wreck.

“You okay, boss?”

Bruce didn’t correct her for once. Instead, he looked grim as he replied, “I went through every bad scenario last night. I didn’t get much sleep.”

“What’s the possibility of you actually having a good time?” Darcy asked, eyebrows hiked up.

“About ten to one.”

“I like those odds,” Darcy countered, giving him a nudge with her elbow.

It wasn’t skin on skin contact like the last time Darcy overstepped her boundaries, so Bruce just frowned at her and readjusted his bag strap on his shoulder.

“You brought a lot of stuff,” Bruce noted.

Darcy had packed two bags for seven days. She knew it was a lot but wasn’t about to apologize for it since the quinjets had more than enough space for her crap.

“This is nothing. My great-aunt used to have an entire suitcase just for shoes.”

“Huh.”

There was a hint of a smirk on Bruce’s face.

“She was married five times,” Darcy added, fuelling him further.

“Your great-aunt sounds like Elizabeth Taylor.”

 “Elizabeth Taylor was married _eight_ times, boss.”

“I knew that,” Bruce retorted.

The crowd began shuffling toward the idle quinjets and it still took a little while longer to properly board and store away luggage.

Once she and Bruce got to the front of the line, they were the last two to board, and Steve Rogers was the one to greet them.

“Darcy, right?”

He took her bags like he was lifting pieces of paper, and Darcy saw the smooth movements of his taut biceps as he placed them inside.

“Captain America, right?” Darcy threw back, and Bruce gave her a sidewards glance before moving past them.

“Steve.”

The correction wasn’t impatient, which was usually Bruce’s style. He said it immediately, like it was normal for him.

Darcy expected he met a lot of people all the time, and she was nothing new.

“Right.”

He pointed to a compartment above her head. “Your bags are in there.”

“Cool.”

Darcy promptly walked away, feeling weird.

She wanted the first time she spoke to Steve Rogers to be epic, and probably something involving her flipping her hair and him catching her scent on the wind and chasing after her.

That was outlandish, and she knew it. She read too many vampire novels as a teenager.

She thought she’d at least have him asking for her number. Instead, she’d sort of just cut him off and walked away.

Being by herself now, she’d have to tell people why she had kept to the labs with Jane all the time, making excuses.

Jane was always so protective of her work, thinking people were out to get her. And she wasn’t entirely wrong, since what happened when Thor first showed up and all her stuff was taken away.

Jane was also a woman in an almost entirely male-run field, and she hated it, and Darcy did, too.

Not that working for Bruce was ever that bad.

As soon as Darcy sat down opposite Bruce, she took out her earbuds and stuck them in, turning her iPod up until she felt at ease.

She looked over to her left, where Steve was standing and checking something in another compartment.

His back was turned toward her and her eyes swivelled to his ass without a second thought.

Darcy pushed her glasses up her nose and bit her lip.

She took a second too long to look away because the second she looked out her window, she saw Bruce staring at her.

-

 

Once they landed roughly ten hours later, Darcy felt stranger than ever.

They’d flown since 8AM but arrived in Honolulu around lunch time.

Darcy already had a sandwich with Bruce but knew she’d never waste the opportunity to head out to a buffet, or hit the bar.

She did a combination of the two after she dropped off her bags in her room, changing into a yellow halter sundress with brand new flip-flops and her new straw hat.

There was a constant commotion around the hotel. They were all staying in one of the more popular hotels that nudged itself up against the shoreline, and Darcy liked the constant bustle in the lobby.

She’d kept her lei on, and walked across the echoing lobby to the open eating area.

She grabbed a plate and started piling on a lot of fruit, and then backtracked to find a mimosa, and bumped into someone.

“You again.”

Steve Rogers looked her up and down.

He was wearing his lei, too, but he’d changed into a pair of shorts.

He wore the same tight shirt as earlier, which made Darcy swallow and then avoid his friendly gaze.

“Yeah,” she murmured.

That seemed to be the best she could do for now.

She looked at the plate Steve carried, which was covered in a pile of bacon rashers and scrambled eggs.

“Whoa. Hungry?”

“Always,” Steve said. “I can put it all away pretty fast, too.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Darcy said under her breath, and then spied the attendant pouring drinks.

She looked over her shoulder back at Steve.

“You drinking?”

“Sure.”

 _Her kind of fella_ , and Darcy almost said it aloud, but decided not to.

She asked for a mimosa, and then Steve was at her side, asking for a beer.

“Beers and bacon in Hawaii?”

“I’ll eat more. I’ll probably eat some fruit off your plate.”

Darcy wasn’t sure about his tone. He was teasing, but she didn’t know why. There was the echo of an innuendo somewhere amongst his words, but she looked away again, wondering why her mind always had to be so dirty.

Vacations were meant to be about meeting people and making friends, not necessarily acting thirsty and banging whoever she could get her legs around.

Darcy thought of the box of condoms she stowed away in her suitcase, and then pushed the idea away again.

“If you ask nicely,” Darcy said, though her tone was flatter than intended.

To her surprise, he followed her to a spare table.

“Can I sit here?”

“I don’t know, _can_ you?”

It slipped out, and then Darcy cringe inwardly, wondering if she sounded as standoffish as she thought she did.

It was the kind of lame joke she’d make with Bruce, or Jane.

“ _May_ I sit with you?” Steve clarified.

“Sure,” Darcy said, but she had no idea why he wanted to.

She had so little in common with him.

He was a hundred years old, literally. And physical perfection.

She was not yet thirty, growing up in a post-Cold War world with television and a whole other bunch of stuff besides being invented after he went into the ice in the 40’s.

She didn’t like being as mean about her own body size, but there was a lot she could work on.

She was a little chubby at times. She lost weight over the years working with Jane, but she wasn’t anything like the other women Steve worked with.

This was definitely wishful thinking territory, and _very_ silly.

He sat down beside her instead of opposite, to look straight ahead at the view.

Or his plate.

“You work with Bruce?”

“Yeah,” Darcy said.

She cleared her throat, and then popped a grape in her mouth.

“I worked with Jane before.”

“She was a great asset. She’ll be missed.”

Steve was eating and not looking her way, so Darcy narrowed her eyes for a second, instinctively rushing to Jane’s defence.

“You never know. She could come back.”

Steve looked straight at her, and Darcy saw his eyes were blue.

“Last thing I heard, she took a job in London.”

Darcy didn’t look away.

“What else did you hear?”

Steve finished his mouthful.

He had already put away a fair bit in just a couple minutes.

“Are you gonna say that’s not your place to say?” Darcy added. “You being from more _polite_ times?”

He chuckled softly at that, sounding somewhat surprised by her sass.

“Of course, ma’am. Gossip was invented after my time. Like the Internet.”

“Oh, that damn internet. Can’t wait for that fad to be over. Kim K trying to break it all the time, and all.”

Steve laughed again, seeming to understand her reference.

She saw he was looking at her bunch of grapes, so she pushed her plate toward him.

“So what did you hear?”

“Doctor Foster wanted to be away from anything to do with Thor.”

Steve took a grape and put it in his mouth, not before Darcy saw another flash of his pink tongue and perfect white teeth.

Darcy let out a breath. “Yeah. She had enough.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?” Darcy fired back. “ _I_ wasn’t dating Thor.”

“Why didn’t you follow her to London?”

She looked at him for a long time.

She could hear everyone around them filling their silence, and then she said the first thing that came into her head.

“I can’t explain it, but I’m drawn to it.”

Steve just softened, nodding.

“This is your calling.”

“I guess you can call it that.”

Darcy sipped her mimosa as Steve ate more grapes. His bacon and eggs were long gone.

“I heard about your taser. And Thor.”

Darcy felt a burst of pride, though Jane had always chided her over the years for rendering Thor unconscious like that.

She only smiled.

“What else have you heard about me?”

“Not much,” Steve admitted. “Nothing good.”

Darcy didn’t take it to heart, instead she rolled with it, recognising finally that Steve was half flirting with her.

Steve Rogers was _flirting_ with her. The idea boggled her mind, but she didn’t want to get ahead of herself.

She felt the heat in her gut, and let it sit there as he smiled back at her.

“That’s what I like to hear.”

After a moment, Steve was the one to look away, his smile still there in his eyes as he looked down at their empty plates.

“What are you plans this afternoon?”

Darcy kind of blurted out the question, and she saw Steve draw back, folding his arms like she saw him doing all the time at a distance.

There was embarrassment mingled with disappointment creeping up inside Darcy, threatening to show on her face.

She made it sound like she was propositioning him, which she _wasn’t_.

“I’m going with Sam Wilson to look at memorials.”

He was so serious that Darcy felt out of place, like she was intruding.

“Oh, great.”

Great? Why didn’t she know how to speak around anyone remotely attractive?

“I mean, that sounds like a great idea.”

“It’s important to him. Sam. And me, too.”

Steve picked up his plate and made to leave.

Darcy swallowed, feeling stupid.

She was on vacation with Captain America talking to her and she still felt stupid.

There was an awkward pause. Everything had gone from feeling great to feeling overwhelmingly terrible in the space of a few seconds.

“I’m gonna get more to eat,” Steve said.

“Sure.”

Darcy consciously put the pieces back together, making her face open and bright again, less disappointed.

He looked at her again, and then lightly touched her glass with his beer bottle.

“Enjoy. Good meeting you, finally.”

He left, not looking back.

Darcy stared at her glass for a full minute before she decided to leave, too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Steve Rogers doing his stance](http://dailyavengers.tumblr.com/post/174747730188/steve-rogers-doing-his-stance)


	4. Chapter 4

Walking back to her room, Darcy spied Natasha playing volleyball along the way.

She pursed her lips, wondering where Bruce was.

She found him sitting under the shade of a palm tree with a book.

Fortunately he’d sort of acclimatized, wearing shorts and no shirt, but he wasn’t aware Darcy was standing beside him until she tapped his chair with the edge of her flip-flop; that was how absorbed he was in his book.

“Hey, boss.”

Bruce jumped, and then lowered his sunglasses to glare up at her.

“Darcy.”

He always sounded mildly annoyed with her.

“You gonna see Natasha at some point today?”

“I’m still on New York time. I’m going to bed soon.”

Bruce looked back at his book.

Darcy read over his shoulder. Of course it wasn’t a novel; it was about the Roko’s Basilisk theory.

“Yikes. That seems totally inappropriate as a beach read.”

“What did you bring?” Bruce retorted, giving up and closing his book, getting up from his deck chair.

“Stephen King.”

“Which one?”

“I couldn’t just bring one. I have five.”

Darcy followed Bruce as he walked back toward the back entrance to a villa that must have been his. He opened the little gate to the patio, pointedly shutting it behind him and leaving Darcy on the other side.

“You are your great-aunt’s niece,” Bruce called after her.

Darcy didn’t say anything.

She knew pushing Bruce into anything might result in her getting told off.

There was always a possibility Bruce could file an official complaint against her, and then HR would be telling her she wasn’t supposed to meddle with his love life.

She pursed her lips again, knowing he just wanted to sleep.

She strolled back to her room and slammed the door behind her, before taking out her phone.

She threw herself on her bed, looking through her notifications.

No new emails from Jane.

So it looked like they weren’t talking right now. And Darcy wasn’t sure what frustrated her more, the fact that she was just being honest with Jane and was being punished, or the fact that when she ever tried to be friendly with anyone else and not overstep anything, she was pushed aside.

Bruce she was used to, because he was grumpy and impatient.

Steve on the other hand – everything seemed to be going fine until he backed off with his stupid tough guy stance.

Darcy didn’t have time for people who distanced themselves from her, especially when she was on vacation.

She put on her summer playlist on her portable speaker, the one she made before the trip to keep her in a good mood, and lay down on her bed.

-

She napped for a couple hours, and woke up to a dark room.

It was around 2 AM New York time.

Rubbing the sleepiness from her eyes, she listened to the sounds coming from outside.

She switched off her iPod, which was midway through a Elvis Presley rendition of Aloha Oe, and decided to change her outfit.

Swimming felt like the best thing for her now, and she put on a sleek black one-piece and her flip-flops.

She carried her keys and her iPod and speaker with her towel, leaving behind her phone.

The walk to the beach was lit by kerosene lamps and a valet walked past her, tipping his hat.

Darcy smiled, because fuck it. She was determined to have a good time.

The moon shone above the ocean, its reflection rippling with the tide.

Darcy put her stuff down and put on some music, back to Elvis.

She tied up her hair in a ponytail and looked around.

Further down the beach there were more people swimming, but she couldn’t make out anyone from the compound, and there was certainly no sign of Natasha and her volleyball playing pals.

Maybe they went to a luau she heard took place each night at the hotel.

Darcy dove into the waves, the water perfect even in the dark.

She didn’t go far out, wanting to still hear the music from her speakers.

She half knelt in the water, closing her eyes as Elvis crooned about being lonesome tonight.

Darcy wasn’t lonely. This solitude was a gift, especially because she wasn’t glued to her phone for once.

“Hey,” called a voice from the shore.

Darcy opened her eyes, turning toward the sound, and saw Steve Rogers standing there with no shirt on, his khaki pants rolled up.

Her mouth went dry.

She shot up from her spot in the water, the water splashing loud and muffling her returning:

“Hey.”

“You’re listening to Elvis Presley?”

“Yeah.”

Darcy made the short walk out of the water, sand on her wet feet and sticking, and distinctively saw Steve look her up and down.

He wasn’t lecherous about it; it was just a slight dip in his gaze that gave him away.

Could he see her nipples in her swimsuit?

Probably, and she decided she didn’t mind if he looked.

He looked like a dream, back to smiling at her, the moonlight bouncing of his ridiculously chiselled upper body.

Darcy picked up her towel and squeezed some of the water out of her hair, swallowing a couple times and trying to reel herself in.

“I have listened to him a bit. He’s on my list.”

“List?” Darcy asked, and Steve shook his head, seeming a little embarrassed.

“I have a list of things I’m trying to catch up on. Stuff I missed because of the ice.”

Darcy nodded.

She pointed at him. “Jeff Buckley. His album Grace.”

“Okay. Noted,” Steve said, his soft smile reaching his eyes and making Darcy want to curl herself around him.

She wondered if she could even wrap her arms around his chest. It didn’t seem likely.

She changed the subject and looked away.

“How were the monuments?”

Steve’s face dropped, putting one hand in his pocket, and Darcy noticed he clutched his shirt in his other.

“Good. Really good.”

Darcy nodded.

“I mean, I’m not sure how to describe it. I was a part of it. It made everyone want to enlist.”

“Mustn’t feel like too long ago,” Darcy murmured, and Steve nodded.

“It feels like only a few years for me. For everybody else, it’s a lifetime ago.”

Darcy put her towel on the ground, horizontal.

They sat together in silence, watching the waves in the moonlight.

“What did you get up to?”

Darcy lied, “I read a lot.”

She thought admitting she napped might make her sound lazy. She thought of Natasha playing volleyball, with her lithe limbs and bouncing hair.

Darcy stopped herself from comparing herself too much. Steve just wanted someone to talk to.

“Also I tried to make Bruce socialize,” Darcy added. “Didn’t work.”

“Yeah, he’s stubborn about that,” Steve murmured. “Hope he makes the most of the week.”

“I keep thinking I’m just bugging him,” Darcy admitted. “I mean, I am being intrusive –”

“How come?” Steve asked, and Darcy felt his eyes on her again, and knew she was close to blushing.

She drew her knees up and hugged them, covering most of her body.

“I want him to be with Natasha already.”

Steve burst out laughing, making Darcy stare back at him.

“Is that something else you heard around the office?” Darcy said drolly, one eyebrow raised.

Steve nodded. “Except Natasha excused herself a few hours ago during dinner and I haven’t heard from her since.”

Darcy gaped, understanding what she hadn’t earlier.

“That sly dog,” she murmured, thinking of Bruce shutting his gate and walking off to bed.

Steve chuckled a little.

“I mean, good for them,” she added. “I want people to be happy together.”

“It’s hard. In this line of work.”

Steve wasn’t smiling anymore, sobered up and looking back at the ocean.

“Jane said to me once that it’s highs and lows,” Darcy said, rocking a little. “You know – the highs are high. And the lows…”

Steve looked back at her.

“…they’re fucking terrible,” she finished, and he nodded.

“I can relate,” he murmured.

Was it her place to ask?

“I heard – and tell me if I’m outta line – that you and Sharon Carter -”

Steve swallowed. “Yeah. It didn’t work out.”

He didn’t seem bothered by her asking. Just kind of sad.

“I’m sorry,” Darcy said, though she wasn’t sure why she did.

The knowledge that Sharon Carter, relative to Steve Rogers’ first love Peggy Carter, had dumped him a couple months back was old news.

There was an awkward pause, and Darcy wondered what to do about it.

“She’s better off,” Steve said, and Darcy felt herself cringe.

“I doubt that,” Darcy muttered, because she couldn’t help herself.

She wasn’t ever going to be crowned the queen of subtlety.

Steve huffed a laugh. “Thanks, Darcy.”

He played her off, and Darcy was fine with that.

After a few more moments of silence save for the waves in front of them, Darcy reached for her iPod, pausing Elvis halfway through Heartbreak Hotel.

The irony wasn’t lost on her, and she shook her head a little before finding the album she was looking for.

“Let’s cross this off your list right now,” she said, and pressed play.

Steve, who seemed side-tracked, looked over at the iPod in her hands and read Jeff Buckley’s name and then smiled a little.

Darcy watched Steve listen for a couple minutes, wondering what he was thinking.

“He has a beautiful voice,” Steve murmured, and then bent his head a little, listening to the lyrics.

“He was a poet,” Darcy replied. “He died when I was little.”

“How?”

“Drowned,” Darcy said. She sucked in a breath. “He was only thirty.”

Every time she thought about him dying like that, she got choked up. It was the same whenever she watched a Marilyn Monroe movie.

“I know it’s stupid. I didn’t even know him. But he means a lot to me.”

Steve didn’t tease, didn’t roll his eyes. He just nodded.

“I understand.”

And Darcy believed him, too. Steve didn’t seem like a liar.

Maybe white lies to spare feelings, but never anything outright false with a malicious intent behind it.

Darcy cleared her throat. “I’ll skip to one of my favourites.”

Steve nodded, watching her change the track with his head still bent.

He had an amazing jawline, and Darcy smiled a little at her present situation despite herself.

She was hanging out with a really great guy, who was most likely the hottest person she ever met, and he was just interested in being with her, with no annoying questions to ask about why she and Jane had hidden away for months. Also, she was sitting on a beach with him.

“It’s not his song. But I feel like it is at the same time. It’s a sad one.”

“I can listen to sad songs, Darcy,” Steve said, smirking.

She liked the way he said her name, with a friendliness Darcy had ignored she’d needed badly since Jane left her side.

“It’s a doozy,” Darcy added. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Darcy heard the familiar breath, so heavy. Burdened, even.

The opening chords of Hallelujah filled their ears and she watched Steve over the next few minutes transform from easy-going to quiet and pensive all over again.

Darcy didn’t dare ask what he was thinking as he stared at the sand near her foot.

“Almost sounds like he’s exorcising something.”

Darcy let out a short laugh, her throat feeling tight.

“Yeah.”

Her voice betrayed her. The song got her every time, even if she was having a good day. And being in a tropical paradise wasn’t going to change that, either.

The song finished. Steve sighed.

“Jesus, I missed that guy’s whole life.”

“Yeah,” Darcy murmured, her eyes still stinging.

“I’ve missed so much.”

“Why don’t you borrow my iPod?”

The idea was sudden, but it seemed like a good one.

Steve looked taken aback. “I dunno, Darcy…”

“Come on. I could use a break from technology.”

She paused it again, and then pushed it into his palm, and Steve held it anyway, though he still shook his head.

“Thanks.”

“Just look after it.”

Darcy got up from her spot on the towel and Steve copied her, watching her as she packed up her things.

She handed him the portable speaker.

“This, too. It’s connected automatically but if you have any issues, ask Sam.”

Steve smiled a little at that. “Because I’m an old man?”

“Of course,” Darcy threw back. She put her flip-flops back on. “I’m gonna go to bed.”

She just smiled at him, feeling the tightness in her throat dissipating.

“See you.”

She walked away, and heard him reply softly, “See you, Darcy.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If it was up to me (and people didn't find it boring) I'd mention Jeff Buckley in literally everything I wrote. Should I maybe branch out? Totally. Will I? Nope. 
> 
> Also, Elvis Presley's Blue Hawaii album is a delight.


	5. Chapter 5

Darcy woke early the next day, opting for cereal from her hotel room.

She set her alarm or otherwise she would have slept through her first surfing lesson.

She signed up for lessons last week, and when she got down to the beach her thoughts went to last night, and Steve’s solemn face in the moonlight.

Three ladies from Communications were there and smiled at her, and Darcy smiled back.

She didn’t expect to suddenly turn pro, but Darcy wanted to at least stand on a surfboard in the water that week.

They practiced on the sand, each of them wearing wetsuits they rented, and Darcy felt more like she was sausage meat stuffed in cheesecloth than ever.

After the lesson, she went straight to the eatery where brunch was being served, and she stopped in her tracks at the site of Steve and Sam Wilson sitting together at a table.

They were in the middle of eating and Darcy felt exposed with Steve’s eyes on her, but Sam didn’t seem to notice her discomfort.

“Lewis. You went surfing?”

Darcy had maybe spoken to Sam once in her life, and it was most likely “pass the creamer”, but she liked that he wasn’t making a big deal about her now.

“Had my first lesson.”

She hovered by their table before sitting down, swallowing a few times and trying to tame her hair that had come loose from her braid.

“You got some sun,” Sam noted, looking at Darcy’s face, which she knew was pink.

“I don’t usually tan. I just… peel.”

Darcy had never felt less sexy in her life, sweating and sitting in her wetsuit. She was supposed to give it back once she showered.

She looked away from Sam, at Steve’s plate that was empty, bacon grease lingering.

“I listened to Grace,” piped up Steve. “Twice.”

Darcy looked at him, and blinked. “Really? That’s impressive.”

“ _I_ came across some interesting tunes, though,” Sam interjected, flashing a grin.

Darcy’s stomach dropped and her heart began to race, knowing that there was some stuff on her iPod she’d rather not have other people see.

She’d somehow forgotten that in her haste yesterday.

“Oh, God,” she groaned, but Sam just laughed at her. “What did you find?”

“The Spring Bitch Jamz playlist?” Sam said. “Like, with a ‘Z’?”

Darcy cringed. “Fuck.”

She saw Steve was smiling, too.

“In my defence, I was eighteen and it was Spring Break in Mexico with my roommates.”

Sam kept laughing.

“Like, one tequila, two tequila, three tequila –”

“Floor,” Sam finished. He bit into an apple he had on his plate, grinning. “Got it.”

Steve kept quiet all the while, which Darcy knew was making her uneasy.

He must think she was an idiot. But it was such a long time ago.

“What are you two up to today?” Darcy asked, changing the subject.

“Nice save, Lewis,” Sam replied.

“Hiking,” Steve said, and he looked right at Darcy again, making her feel worse than ever about the wetsuit and sunburn.

“You wanna come with?” Sam elaborated, since Steve was remaining subdued.

Darcy thought about it. Why the hell not? She had no other plans. Maybe the luau tonight, but she didn’t want to go read a book somewhere anymore.

“Sure,” she said, and the men seemed both surprised she said yes.

“Romanoff’s coming too,” Sam said. “And Bruce.”

“Those two managed to make an entrance yet today?” Darcy asked, and saw a brief look across Sam’s face.

Was she impressing him?

“Damn,” Sam said.

He looked at Steve, pointing Darcy’s way.

“She the one you said who called it?”

“Yeah,” Steve said, and he looked at Darcy while he fiddled with his fork in one hand.

Darcy tilted her head to the side. “What, like it was hard to tell?”

“Natasha’s a _spy_ , Darcy,” Sam said, like it was as good a reason as any.

“I’m all this and brains, too,” Darcy quipped.

She knew she was being kind of a jerk, but Sam seemed to appreciate her style of humour. He chuckled, biting into his apple with a loud crunch and shaking his head at her.

Making friends was proving easy, at least with Sam.

“We’re leaving in half an hour,” Steve said, “I mean, if you want to come.”

“I wanna come,” Darcy murmured, and then wanted to hide her face.

Her words were innocent enough, but when she heard herself her mind was elsewhere, and she felt herself blush.

She didn’t look Steve in the eye.

“I’ll meet you guys in the lobby.”

“Sure,” Sam said, not acknowledging her embarrassment if he’d noticed it. “Hopefully the lovebirds will arrive soon enough.”

-

Darcy walked back to her room and jumped in the shower, rinsing off sand and saltwater.

She brushed her hair, shaved, and made sure to slather more sunscreen on.

She put on makeup, and then paused once she had to get dressed.

She could be bold and show off her chest more.

Last night when she was in her one-piece, it hugged her figure and covered her cleavage completely, but the material was thinner than a normal shirt.

She dithered, before deciding that hiking in a bikini top and nothing else would make her seem like an idiot, so she pulled on a pair of denim shorts and her Keds, wearing a bikini under an old shirt she tied at the bottom to cinch in her waist.

She let her hair fall loose and found her sunglasses and her hat, skipping out the door.

When she got to the lobby, just Sam and Steve stood there, both of them with their arms crossed.

“No Bruce and Natasha?” Darcy asked, and Steve looked her way.

His eyes travelled to her legs for a second before looking her in the eye.

“Nah.” He swallowed.

Darcy felt the brief flare of desire low in her gut, but then remembered Sam was there, too.

“You gonna call their rooms and ask for them?”

Sam shot her a look. “And deal with Natasha? No, thank you.”

“So, just us three then,” Darcy murmured. “Is that – is that okay?”

She knew she sounded hesitant. She was just aware that Sam didn’t know her too well, and neither did Steve.

“Yeah,” Steve said. “Sam?”

“Sure.”

They left, and began walking out into the main street and then up a hill.

Sam mostly led the way several feet ahead of them

Steve walked beside Darcy, which she appreciated. She knew he could move much faster than her without breaking a sweat, and he was choosing to keep her company.

“There was another playlist I found,” Steve said. “Not like the Mexico party mix.”

Darcy laughed softly. “What was it?”

“Ian.”

The way he said it, Darcy could have sworn he was trying to be delicate. He must have had some idea about who Ian was.

“The intern. Uh, the other intern,” Darcy explained.

Someone came by on their bike, and Steve touched the small of her back to guide her aside.

Darcy could get used to chivalry. Or just general niceness.

“Thanks,” she murmured. “He’s my ex.”

“I figured,” Steve said. “We don’t have to talk about it.”

“It’s fine,” Darcy said, and she looked over toward Sam’s figure ahead of them, wondering if he could hear their conversation. “It was a while ago.”

Steve just nodded.

“Some of those songs were kind of – _cheesy_. No offence.”

He was still being delicate.

Darcy shrugged to put him at ease. “None taken. I didn’t put my heart into it.”

The songs she chose were generic, love songs she could have played at any person’s wedding. Ian asked her to make it so she had songs to listen to when they were apart to remind herself of him.

“I think I was with him because I thought I was meant to be. Because of what we’d been through together.”

She said it slowly, but she knew she’d wanted to say it aloud for a while.

Steve was quiet for a few moments, frowning a little.

“He asked me to move in with him, to leave Jane. I didn’t. So we broke up.”

“He gave you an ultimatum?” Steve asked.

He almost sounded gruff or annoyed by what she said.

“No,” Darcy said hastily. “I just knew I didn’t love him.”

A question hung between them, and Steve didn’t address it.

Instead, he surprised Darcy by stating:

“Sharon knew what I was like, what the work was like. Still, I hurt her.”

Darcy swallowed, wondering what to say. She wanted to ask if Steve loved Sharon – but she knew he was avoiding that.

“Jane knew, too. With Thor,” Darcy said. “She said it hurt just the same every time he didn’t come back when he promised he would. She was always waiting.”

She looked at Steve, seeing he was brooding again.

“Why do you beat yourself up over it, Steve?”

He looked at her, and she felt like he’d cut her to the bone with his stare.

She felt like her chest was going to split apart.

“She deserved better. And I can’t make someone happy.”

“You make me happy,” Darcy blurted.

Sam turned around and looked her way, eyebrows raised.

So he _had_ been eavesdropping.

“I mean, you’re making me happy by just being around me.”

Steve laughed softly, shaking his head at her.

“Darcy, you’re being very generous.”

“I’m serious,” she said, more insistent.

Darcy stopped mid-step and turned around to look at how far they’d already come.

She could see the entire island, spotted with people, cars and houses. The lush greenery was enough to make her want to stare for hours and watch life go by.

“Wow,” she breathed.

Steve stopped, too, looking back.

“Yeah.”

-

They kept walking for another hour, and then Sam pointed out another lookout in another section.

“You good, Lewis?” Sam asked. “Or do you need to stop?”

Darcy pretended to swoon, fanning her face.

“With my _delicate_ constitution?”

Darcy then sat down on a fallen tree, conceding that she did need to rest.

Sam just chuckled, and then looked at Steve.

“You keep her company, Cap. I’ll come back for you.”

Darcy watched the two men look at each other, and Steve frowned for a second before Sam clapped him on the shoulder, walking ahead to climb an even taller hill in the distance.

“Why do I get the feeling he was planning to do that the entire time?”

She didn’t realize she’d said it aloud until Steve laughed, louder than Darcy expected.

She would have regretted her lack of filter if he hadn’t reacted that way.

She just smiled a little at him, then looked at the ground.

“You don’t have to stay behind, Steve,” she murmured.

“I want to,” he said.

Darcy looked up at him, seeing he was standing closer, a kind smile on his face.

She could hear the sea in the distance, and closed her eyes for a second while she let the sounds wash over her, and then heard the crunch of Steve’s footsteps.

“Let’s walk this way.”

He gestured to a group of trees and Darcy blinked.

“Sure,” she said, her heart hammering.

Alone with him felt dangerous. Not like last night when they mostly looked at the moonlight and not at each other.

Maybe she was presumptuous, thinking he was checking her out in the lobby.

She swallowed.

“Sure,” she said again.

They walked together further into the outskirts of the town, stepping over logs, ferns and other things Darcy didn’t know the names of.

“Wow,” Steve mused, and she looked his way.

They’d been walking for ten minutes, with no sign of civilisation to be seen.

Darcy could still hear the occasional echo of a car driving somewhere, but they were just about alone in another world.

Steve was staring at some flowers that hang overhead.

He picked off one, and smelt it.

“This place is incredible,” Darcy said, and Steve smiled a little.

He seemed to be at peace with everything. He handed the flower to her, pressing it into her palm, and curling her fingers around it.

The sudden intimacy overwhelmed Darcy, and she looked up at him into his eyes, knowing she was freezing up at his touch.

“Steve.”

What did she even want to say to him? She was at a loss.

“Darcy,” he replied.

He reached out and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear and Darcy shivered.

Being this close to him excited her, made her want to be reckless.

Her breath hitched at his touch and she knew he heard it, _knew_ that Steve knew she was affected by him.

He drew his finger down the side of her face, and Darcy just waited.

She waited, knowing she had that needy feeling between her legs. She wanted that release.

His hand cupped her face, drawing her toward him, and she felt him close in on her, their bodies touching.

He closed his eyes and Darcy copied, their noses brushing.

He turned her face up to his, and his lips brushed hers, his breath on her skin.

He kissed her, tentative and soft.

Why was he doing this? Because she was just there, and he was thinking of Sharon?

Darcy didn’t have to think about why she wanted this – he was sexy, strong and willing. He made her legs shake when he wasn’t even touching her clit, he made her surrender just by looking at her.

Steve drew back slightly, breathing heavily.

He still clutched her in his hand, and Darcy arched her back toward him, slanting her mouth over his, and he caught her waist with his other hand.

His tongue teased the seam of her lips, and she opened to him, moaning a little as he swept into her mouth, hot and enthusiastic.

He suddenly cupped her ass with both hands and she gasped.

“Jesus,” Darcy mumbled.

She kissed him again, letting her hands fall to his chest, wondering if she should push back.

She decided she didn’t want him to stop.

“You got a condom?” she whispered.

Steve drew back, and Darcy saw his eyes were glazed with lust, his cheeks blotched with pink and his mouth wet.

She instinctively clenched on absolutely nothing between her legs at the sight of him.

“Yeah, I do.”

Darcy chuckled and then he kissed her again, his one hand on the back of her head and the other still grabbing her ass.

She didn’t want to think too much about why he would have a condom on him – he was an adult. Darcy just happened to have left all hers in her room instead of grabbing one.

Steve moved them back toward a tree, and pressed her against it.

His hands moved again, and now they were on her midriff that was partly showing.

The brush of his fingers splayed across her skin made her shiver again, and she felt one hand make its descent toward her fly.

“Shit,” she muttered, once he’d undone her shorts and skirted lightly across the front of her panties.

She could see how wet she was down there, and he had to be able to feel that.

It was all for him – he was driving her crazy just kissing her. She wondered what he’d feel like inside her.

She didn’t have to wait, he was under her waistband and rubbing her clit in little circles and making her eyes roll back.

“Fuck,” she whispered, and he captured her in another kiss, one hand in her shorts with the other up her shirt and finding a nipple.

She gasped as he pushed two fingers inside her with ease.

Her moans were louder, more ragged once he began pumping his fingers slowly inside her as he teased her clit with his thumb.

He teased her nipple, unleashing it from the bikini cup.

She realized she wasn’t touching him back, and reached for the button on the front of his shorts.

“Let me return the favour.”

He became rougher with his fingers, and Darcy’s hand slipped away from him as she clenched around him, crying out.

She looked in his eyes, feeling dizzy with desire, wondering what she’d done to get this guy to do this to her.

His hands withdrew from her shorts and from under her shirt and he took her by the hips and turned her around.

Darcy looked over her shoulder into his eyes.

They looked darker, and she swallowed again, the anticipation getting to her.

He wanted her like this – from behind against a tree in the middle of the wild.

She fumbled with her shorts and dropped them, and heard the rustle of Steve unwrapping the condom.

She looked down at his cock that he’d taken out of his shorts and her eyes widened.

He was bigger than she expected. She stared, and watched him roll on the condom with his bottom lip between his teeth.

He pulled down her panties and Darcy felt the blunt tip of his cock pressed against her, before he began to push inside.

It felt never-ending, until he was seated inside her, and he groaned, Darcy moaning along with him.

He had to bend his knees because of their height difference, and began moving inside her.

One hand bit into her ass as he moved almost all the way out before slamming back into her.

Darcy cried out.

Steve then proceeded change the angle, somehow making it feel deeper than ever.

She had to be dripping by now. It felt slippery to Darcy as Steve moved, more erratic over time.

“I’m close,” Steve gasped, and Darcy looked over her shoulder again, licking her lips.

She watched as his face screwed up and he groaned, shoving deeper with his hips stuttering and he came.

She felt him twitch inside her when he did, and she had never felt that happen before.

Steve sighed, resting his body and face against her for a few seconds.

They separated, and Darcy turned around, both of them still panting.

“You’re amazing,” he said, dreamy.

Darcy laughed a little. “You mean my pussy’s amazing.”

Steve’s laugh was breathless. He pulled off the condom and tied it off.

“I mean, it _is_ ,” he said. “But you’re amazing.”

She didn’t know what to make of him. Whether it meant something more than a nice fuck. They were on vacation and she didn’t know him that well.

They’d wanted each other just the same. He wanted her enough to screw her into a tree.

Darcy wiped some of the sweat from her face, breathing deeply.

“We should head back before Sam comes looking for us.”

The smile faded from Steve’s face. He nodded.

“Right.”

Darcy pulled her clothes back on, and felt everything fall into an awkward place.

Maybe they shouldn’t have done that.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [me rn](https://media.giphy.com/media/2lG8fMhri8Pmw/giphy.gif)


	6. Chapter 6

Their awkward silence translated into a near unbearable one that permeated the rest of their walk back to the path where they’d stopped earlier.

Sam was there waiting for them, and whether he knew what happened, Darcy didn’t care to know.

She looked ahead instead and didn’t give anyone the opportunity to stop her from speeding off as they walked back.

Once she got back to her room, her heart was racing and she wondered why she had to think with her junk instead of being rational.

She knew one-night stands, and she’d participated in a few to know that it was easier to never see the person again, which was kind of the whole point of them in the first place!

She bit her lip, mulling over everything.

 _You’re too generous_ , he said. Was she too willing to have him fuck her like that without much talking first?

She wasn’t going to shame herself. She never would on principle alone.

She threw herself down on her bed, staring at the ceiling.

Ditching Sam and Steve the second they got back, she wondered if Sam would know what happened.

Would some rumour start up about her? She didn’t like the idea of total strangers talking about her like that.

Maybe he missed Sharon. Maybe he was just lonely like her.

Lonely enough to do something dangerous like that. Having a guy like that close to her made her feel stupid because she knew that would end in pain.

He told her as much when he mentioned Sharon.

She took out her phone and opened an email to send to Jane.

_This is a funny sentence to be writing. I slept with Steve Rogers._

She sent it, wondering if Jane would respond right away.

She waited, and nothing came back.

Darcy swallowed whatever emotion she was feeling and went to her suitcase to find a book.

Her fingers brushed the box of condoms and she suddenly wanted to scream.

Make friends, not mistakes! That’s what she’d intended to do on vacation, and she’d fucked up.

But she didn’t regret it. It felt great. The more she thought about it, it was probably some of the best sex she’d ever had.

She craned her head, listening to the hotel’s bustle as people were preparing for the luau.

She’d go.

-

 

A couple hours later when she’d abandoned her book and couldn’t ignore her hunger any longer, Darcy ventured out to find food.

She wanted a cocktail as big as her head if she could find one.

She smiled at a bartender, who she approached with a sigh.

“Hey, you got fishbowls?”

“Of course, ma’am.”

 _Ew_ , Darcy thought. She hated being called that. It made her think too much about how she compared to other women her age, and whether she was enough of an adult.

People had frequently told her to grow up.

Darcy chose a piña colada and the bartender made it in front of her, and Darcy wondered if she was being much of an adult, deciding to get drunk and not talk to Steve - immediately after they had sex - about boundaries or expectations.

Characteristically, Darcy decided to procrastinate anything too serious since she was on vacation, and took her drink away in two hands after giving her room number.

She spotted a Communications woman from her surfing class, who waved to her.

“Hey, Darcy!” she called.

Maybe Darcy was a bitch for never putting herself out there when Jane was around, because these people were nice.

“Hey,” she called back. “Kylie, right?”

“Yeah!”

The blonde grinned at her. “You look cute with your drink.”

Darcy gave a genuine grin, feeling her heart flutter a little, overwhelmed by this stranger.

“Aw, thanks. You want one?”

Kylie walked toward her, looking pinker than that morning during class.

“Maybe later. I’ll probably get a chardonnay. You going to dinner?”

“Yeah,” Darcy said.

She took a sip from her drink, nodding.

“I’ll see you there,” Kylie said with a smile, touching Darcy’s arm briefly before walking off and waving.

Darcy smiled a little, and then spied Bruce at a small table by himself.

“Making friends?” he asked by way of greeting.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Darcy returned.

She sipped her drink again, humming.

“Heard you went for a hike with Sam and Steve.”

“Saw you didn’t,” Darcy countered.

She put one hand on her hip, pretending to chastise him.

Bruce just nodded lightly, seeming lost in his own thoughts.

“You okay, boss?”

“You don’t have to call me that, Darcy,” he said, looking up at her. “Especially not here when you’re not on duty.”

She shrugged and sipped.

“You trying not to get ahead of yourself?” she asked, and he seemed to know what she meant.

“Yeah, I guess so,” he replied softly.

“Jane was the same, the very last time Thor was on Earth,” Darcy said, swallowing her drink and looking at the sunset behind them. “Never did want to get her hopes up.”

“My ex was the same. Betty,” Bruce said. “Then we broke up.”

Darcy let the moment sit between them, and then Bruce sighed.

This was the most honest he had ever been with her. She supposed Nat made him more open.

“What’s the saying, boss?”

Bruce looked at her, confused.

“Keep on truckin’?” Darcy added, and he shook his head at her, but chuckled.

“Sure, Darcy,” he murmured.

She left him to find the rest of the group, and saw everyone was sitting around tables covered with food.

There were traditional dances and music, and Darcy’s face lit up as she sipped her drink while she walked over to sit opposite Natasha.

Having just seen Bruce, Darcy felt bolder.

“Hey,” she said lightly to the redhead, who paused mid-chew.

“Hey yourself.”

Her voice was husky, like a dream.

Darcy was happily tipsy at this point. She put her drink down, deciding food was necessary, unless she wanted to end up face first in the sand by the end of the night.

This wasn’t Mexico and she wasn’t eighteen.

Biting a piece of watermelon, Darcy groaned at the taste.

“Jesus, this place is _insane_.”

She heard the soft laugh that came from Natasha.

“I’d move here if I could,” Darcy added, looking at Natasha and nodding. “Absolutely.”

“People who vacation here and people who live here are very different.”

Darcy swallowed, considering.

“Well, obviously.”

Natasha snorted. “Right. I’m being condescending. I just mean that people usually run from their responsibilities here.”

Darcy thought of Bruce sitting by himself while Natasha was here. She suddenly felt protective.

“Are you?”

Natasha frowned.

“Running from your responsibilities?” Darcy added.

Unblinking, Natasha countered, “I’m running from a lot of things, Darcy.”

Darcy didn’t know what to make of that, but hearing the spy be so candid made her feel naked when she’d rather go unseen.

She got the feeling that Natasha was like that with everyone, and yet she never gave too much of herself away.

“Me, too, I think,” Darcy admitted, and then Natasha gave the brief hint of a smile before returning to her food.

They ate in silence for some time, watching the performances and clapping with the rest of the crowd.

Steve arrived with Sam in tow, and Darcy felt her heart begin to race.

The vivid recent memory of them together amongst the trees filled her mind and she went back to her drink, eager to avoid looking too closely at him.

He sat beside Natasha, and Darcy supposed he was making a point.

He wasn’t going to acknowledge anything if she wasn’t.

Sam sat beside her, giving her a nudge with his elbow.

“Drinking, Lewis?”

“Sure,” Darcy said, lips quirking. “You?”

“I’m gonna eat that whole pig that’s on that spit over there,” he said, and pointed at the table several feet away that an attendant stood at, sharpening their knives.

“Oh,” Darcy said, laughing. “Better hurry before Steve gets to it.”

She saw Steve look at her in the corner of her eye, but didn’t dare turn her head his way.

“Good idea,” Sam said, winking.

He touched her arm, affectionate, as he moved off toward the spit and Darcy watched him walk away.

“He’s single, you know,” Natasha said.

Darcy smirked. “Well, what a coincidence. Me, too.”

Steve took a drink from his beer and Darcy saw a flicker of a look on his face, but she couldn’t quite detect what he was feeling.

Natasha shrugged. “He _is_ single, right, Steve?”

Steve nodded dumbly, and Darcy wanted the ground to open up and swallow her with the way he was looking at her now.

“Probably not his type,” Darcy said lightly, trying to play it off.

“White?” Natashed prompted, and Darcy shrugged.

“Nah, just - I dunno,” Darcy mumbled.

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Steve said in a low voice.

It was the first time he’d spoken to her, and Darcy stared at him as he chugged his beer, unblinking.

Natasha took the moment in, and Darcy guessed every secret was probably out in the open with the three of them, now.

Natasha got up from her seat, walking toward Sam without saying another word.

“We don’t have to talk about it,” Darcy said immediately. “What happened.”

“Right,” Steve said. His jaw was tight. “But it did happen, right? I wanted to clarify, since you ditched us the second after _it_ happened.”

This was the nastiest she’d ever seen him, and that was saying a lot, because he wasn’t even being that rude. He just seemed argumentative.

Darcy felt her figurative hackles go up, but she wasn’t sure how this conversation was meant to end.

“It did happen,” she hissed.

They just glared at one another for a second, and then Darcy took another sip from her drink.

“For the record, I don’t regret it,” Darcy added.

Something changed on Steve’s face, and he let his bottle drop to the table.

“You don’t?”

“No, I don’t.”

She was talking in sharp whispers now, and felt herself blush despite being so close to him only a few hours ago.

“It was fantastic.”

She supposed she sounded angry, but Steve just stared at her.

“Yeah, it was.”

Steve swallowed. He hesitated, but spoke anyway.­

“You want me to give your iPod back?”

“Sure, if you want to,” Darcy whispered. “You don’t have to yet.”

“I want to.”

Darcy felt a complicated series of feelings. Did that mean he was done with her already and he’d got what he wanted? Did he want nothing tied to her at all?

She cared because that iPod sometimes felt like her life force. But she hated how passive she sounded under the pressure of her own insecurities.

“You can come by my room with it later,” she added under her breath, the words tumbling out.

“Okay,” Steve murmured.

She looked away, and then shoved some fruit in her mouth to stop her from talking any more.

As Sam and Natasha returned, they lapsed into conversation, talking about the sunset, mostly.

Darcy tried not to read into how Steve looked at her when he thought she couldn’t see him.

When Darcy excused herself a while later, she said goodnight and waved.

Steve said goodnight, so she wasn’t sure if he was covering himself.

Was he ashamed of her?

Darcy supposed she was a major contrast to Sharon Carter, who was trained by SHIELD, had a major history of espionage and the family connection.

She was also blonde, slim and taller than Darcy.

Darcy huffed as she walked away when she knew she was far enough away to go unnoticed, annoyed at herself for caring so much about what Steve thought of her.

He thought enough about her to stick his dick inside her.

 _Don’t sell yourself short_ could just translate to Darcy being highly fuckable, which she knew she was.

Her build told her as much, as well as Steve twitching inside her when he came.

She pushed her thoughts away when she returned to her room, kicking off her flip-flops and lying down.

She saw a reply from Jane on her phone, and felt relief.

_Good for you._

That was it. Darcy grit her teeth, wondering if she should FaceTime her and ask Jane what she meant by that.

She decided against it.

She tossed her phone down, staring at the ceiling.

The pleasant tipsiness had worn off since she hadn’t demolished the fishbowl, and when she heard the knock on her door, Darcy jumped.

She scrambled from the bed, her heart pounding.

She opened the door, and there stood Steve.

In his hand was her iPod, and Darcy looked down at it.

“Thanks. For letting me borrow it,” he said, and handed it to her.

Darcy took it. “It’s okay.”

“Darcy,” Steve began.

She looked up at him.

“What?”

“Are you sure it’s okay? What happened, I mean?”

She pulled him by the arm and the door closed behind him.

She figured their conversation was best continued in privacy.

“Why do you ask that?”

“It was so sudden.”

Darcy thought for a second. “I mean, _yeah_ , but –”

“I didn’t give you a chance to say no.”

The penny dropped and Darcy stared at him. She shook her head, adamant.

“I could have said no anytime I wanted, Steve.”

He looked relieved. “That’s good. I wondered –”

“What?” she prompted.

She saw him look at her unmade bed.

“Do you want to do it again?” he asked, and Darcy looked down at his bare hands that cradled her body earlier that day.

She thought about how wet he made her, and she sucked in a breath.

She closed the gap between them, kissing him, pressing up against his hips and steering him toward the bed, and he let her guide him.

He kissed her neck and she almost purred aloud, her chest heaving as she bent to his will, as he took her in his arms and spun them so they landed on the mattress with him on top of her.

It was a mistake, because her iPod was pressed between their bodies and it hurt as they landed.

“Sorry!” Steve whispered hastily, touching her stomach where the gadget had dug into her.

“It’s okay,” Darcy said softly, though it did hurt.

She tossed it aside on the floor, and then Steve kissed her, pressing her into the bed once again.

It felt so intimate lying with him like that, instead of with her back to him.

She felt between them and cupped him through his shorts.

“Jesus, doll,” Steve groaned, and went for her neck again.

She hadn’t been called that before, and it made her smile even though this was just meant to be for fun, and nothing more.

She was probably going against whatever advice Jane was withholding from her.

But he was fucking hot, and he was kissing her back.

She found his fly and undid it, and he paused.

“Already?” he said, and she nodded.

“You need to feel how wet I am again to believe me?” she countered, and he let out a huff of a laugh into her neck.

“Got something to say for everything, don’t you, doll?” he whispered, and his hands were up her shirt again, fingers under her bikini top and teasing her nipples.

Her hips rocked, and she smiled, feeling so free.

“Come on, you know I like it,” she whispered.

She gave a hiss as he grabbed her by the front of her shirt, tugging her along the covers, and then undid her fly, too.

Her shorts were down and on the floor in seconds, along with her underwear.

He looked down at her body beneath him and traced her hip with his fingers, and then trailed down to her pussy, just brushing her lips and then he gulped.

It might be the hottest thing Darcy had ever seen, his reaction to the feel of her sex on his fingers, practically dripping onto the covers beneath her.

“Condoms are in my suitcase.”

Darcy nodded toward her luggage on the floor, and Steve left her for the brief moment he needed to get one, and then he was back, crowding her again.

She pulled at his shorts, seeing his length close up and licking her lips.

His head dropped for a second to rest on her shoulder, and Darcy waited, wondering what he was doing.

“You still with me?” she asked, and he resurfaced, nodding.

His shorts and underwear were gone now, and he rolled the condom on, lining them up as Darcy hooked a leg over his hip.

“You sure?” he asked.

“Give it to me,” Darcy whispered, and Steve didn’t need to be told twice.

She sucked in a breath as he pushed inside.

She kissed him again, wanting to distract herself from how fucking perfect he felt inside her.

They fit so well together, and she had to reel back whatever emotion it was that was threatening to spill over.

She gasped once he began to move, and he was just as desperate as before.

If not, more so, and he pressed his forehead to hers as they rocked.

“I think I’m gonna come already,” he murmured, and Darcy let out a breath.

“Really?”

“Yeah, I’m sorry, Darcy,” he whispered.

She was about to tell him to shut up, and that he was being extremely flattering, but he pressed on her clit without warning and soon she was screaming.

He was going to wreck her, he was going to make her want to do it all night at that rate.

Or just kill her.

Her toes curled and she thought she saw stars as she came, and he followed soon after, crushing her against him as he rutted relentlessly.

Once he pulled out, spent as he lay on the bed beside her, he chuckled.

“Wow,” he said, and Darcy smiled.

“Yeah.”

She wondered if the walls were thin.

 

 

 

 

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

They lay apart from each other, their breathing slowing, and Darcy’s pulse was settling to a sleepier speed, and she rolled her eyes toward Steve, who was looking at the ceiling.

“You okay?”

Darcy touched his arm, and then propped herself up with her chin in her hand, looking down at him.

“Yeah. I think I should go.”

The moment was ruined. Their fun was over. Consequences were threatening to beat down the door, and Darcy bit her lip.

“Yeah, but you don’t have to.”

Steve looked at her, hesitating.

“Okay.”

So was he staying?

Darcy thought of waking up next to him, and doing it again in the morning –

“Will Sam notice?”

Steve considered that. “He might.”

“Maybe you should go, then.”

Steve rolled onto his side, frowning. “If that’s what you want.”

He was echoing her words from before, and Darcy felt like he was throwing them in her face.

“Yeah.”

She said it, and still didn’t feel the words until Steve was up from her side and grabbing his clothes, putting them back on.

She felt colder, and shivered. She covered her chest with her arms, sitting up and watching as he turned back into what he was before.

It was over so fast - that good feeling of being with him - that Darcy felt her eyes sting.

She blinked hard, not sure what she’d do if she let Steve actually see her cry.

He turned to her, and Darcy gave a forced smile.

Maybe he sensed it, because his hands slid up her arm to her shoulder, squeezing.

“Goodnight, Darcy.”

He leaned toward her and kissed her briefly, a chaste peck on the lips.

When he left, she could have sworn he was holding something back from her, but she didn’t want to entertain that idea, because she knew all of this would end in pain if she risked too much of herself.

What happened in Hawaii should stay in Hawaii, she told herself, as she pulled on her night shirt and fell back on her bed, touching her lips with her fingertips and sighing.

-

 

The next morning was another surfing lesson, and Kylie chatted to her throughout.

Eventually they got on the subject of the luau last night.

“Sam’s really cute, huh?”

“Yeah,” Darcy said, and then winked at her. “Heard he’s single.”

“Oh, I don’t want to impose if you had your eye on him,” Kylie said hastily, misinterpreting her.

“No!” Darcy gave a dismissive wave. “I mean, I heard he’s single. Don’t worry about me.”

After another two practices of jumping up on their boards, Kylie prodded Darcy’s side.

“You seeing anyone?”

“No, I’m not.”

It felt weird to say that, but Darcy pretended she wasn’t fazed by the question, making the point of shrugging.

“What about Steve Rogers, then?”

Darcy froze, and then realized Kylie was just asking about Steve’s status.

“He’s single.”

Her throat felt tight. She wanted to leave. She looked at their instructor, who was helping a teenager with their technique.

“He’s so handsome. It’s ridiculous.”

Darcy let out a short laugh, fake. “Yeah.”

She wasn’t lying, she just wanted to bury herself in the sand and never come out.

“I mean, his _ass_ alone,” Darcy stage whispered, and then Kylie exploded into giggles.

A couple students turned to stare at them and Darcy pretended to concentrate on her own technique, averting her gaze.

-

An hour later Darcy had a hankering for some pancakes and went to search for some, and of course, right one cue Steve was at her side, getting some bacon.

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” Darcy said, smiling.

She was quite the little actor. She knew her hands were sweaty the second she saw him, and her heart felt like it was about to beat out of her chest.  
  
After fucking twice in a day, she was reduced to this. It was almost pathetic.

“Right,” Steve said, smiling as well, and Darcy didn’t see it reach that far on his face like it did last night when he was on top of her and teasing her nipples.

Thinking about that now wasn’t going to help, and Darcy went for the massive stack of pancakes and took three, with little bottle of syrup.

“I got you these.”

She looked at Steve and saw he’d got a bunch of grapes.

“Oh. Thanks.”

They walked together over to a table and sat opposite each other.

“Where’s Sam?” Darcy asked, as she poured some syrup, focusing her gaze on her food.

She meant to seem casual.

“He went for a run.”

“But not you, too?” Darcy asked, and set her syrup down and picked up her cutlery.

Steve chewed, shaking his head. “I wanted to see you.”

Darcy tried not to visibly react, instead hacking at her stack of pancakes, nodding.

“Yeah, it’s good to see you.”

She thought she might have hated her she was Steve, because she was pushing back so much.

She was close to telling him she should have asked him to stay. But she knew if she said it he’d ask her why she didn’t let him stay, and then maybe she’d hurt his feelings.

If she somehow hadn’t already.

“You go to your surfing class again?” Steve asked, and Darcy finally looked at him.

She’d taken off her wet suit and wore another dress, this time her blue gingham one that made Jane call her Dorothy.

Darcy nodded. “Kylie from Communications asked about you.”

Steve stopped chewing and swallowed. “What did she say?”

“Wondered if you were single.”

“What did you say?”

Darcy bit her lip. “I said you weren’t seeing anyone.”

Steve moved back from his food, resting in his chair and watching her.

Darcy wanted a friend. She didn’t want him to suddenly leave her like everyone else seemed to.

“We don’t have to… promise each other anything.”

She said it carefully, choosing to look back at him, and she was shocked to see he was miserable, and not angry with her.

“Yeah. I guess that’s for the best.”

“It’s a vacation.”

Darcy shrugged one shoulder and went back to eating. After she finished her mouthful, she wiped her mouth like she would if she was by herself.

She wasn’t trying to impress him. She needed to follow through with her own rules.

She dropped her voice in case anyone nearby could hear her.

“I was horny.”

 _You were gagging for it_ , she thought, and it was automatic.

Steve finally let out a laugh, though it lacked warmth. “Yeah, me, too.”

“Visibly so,” Darcy added, one eyebrow raised at him.

It was better if they could joke about it.

“I could say the same to you, too, doll.”

They were openly flirting, but it wasn’t too heavy. Darcy finished her stack and pushed her plate away, looking at the grapes.

“You’ll have to share these with me.”

Steve nodded, tapping his finger on his plate.

“Let’s go for a walk.”

Darcy shot him a look, feeling the heat rise in her cheeks.

“It doesn’t have to be like _that_. Unless you want it to be.”

That passivity returning made Darcy shift a little in her seat.

“Stop asking that, Steve. I’m a big girl.”

“You’re actually really short,” Steve said, and Darcy frowned.

She crossed her arms, imitating him from two days ago when he scurried off.

“Did you consider that you’re too tall?” she snapped, and Steve chuckled.

-

They strolled off by the beach, passing each other the grapes and watching people swimming by. Steve had put on a hat and a pair of sunglasses.

“Can’t have the public knowing that Captain America is entitled to some time off,” Darcy said with a dramatic roll of her eyes.

“You be me for a day and see how you like it,” Steve retorted.

He was wearing those Ray Bans like he was one of the models at Sunglass Hut, so Darcy wasn’t really complaining.

She wore her straw hat again, barefoot in the sand.

“Would you ever want to swap with me?” Darcy asked.

Steve looked her way and then back to the ocean.

“I guess women these days are better off than ever. I’d still get attention as you.”

Darcy gave him a sharp look, disagreeing, and Steve stopped walking.

“You’re kidding me, Darcy. You’re beautiful.”

_I don’t look like Sharon. Or Natasha._

“Thanks,” Darcy said, and walked further ahead and Steve had to catch up.

“Like today. You look really nice.”

“Nice?” she repeated.

 “My friend Bucky would have asked you out every weekend back in the day.”

It was hard to believe the people Steve’s age most likely had canes or were dead.

Her own grandfather was in fact younger than Steve, and died many years ago. Darcy hardly remembered him.

“You mean Bucky Barnes, right?”

“Yeah. He’s – he’s on the run.”

Steve looked uneasy admitting this, but this wasn’t news to her.

“I know.”

How much did he think she knew about him?

“I wrote an essay on you when I was in seventh grade,” she said, and watched him take that in.

“Okay,” he said. It seemed to be all he could say to that.

“Is that weird to know about me?”

 _When you slept with me yesterday?_ The question left unasked.

“You’re telling me you wrote about me when you were thirteen.”

“I was actually twelve,” Darcy said, quieter.

Steve groaned a little. “Yeah, I probably didn’t need to know that.”

“I mostly just talked about how you saved the world, basically.”

That information didn’t seem to sit well with him, either.

“I don’t know, Darcy.”

“I have to take a compliment, but you don’t?”

“But you _do_ look cute today.”

Darcy ignored the flutter in her belly and pointed at him. “Not the issue here.”

Some kids raced past them, splashing Darcy’s feet and she stepped back, taking Steve with her as he grabbed her hand.

Steve took his hand away a second later, flexing his fingers a little and Darcy looked up at his eyes instead.

“You are a hero, Steve. You saved everybody. In a way, you saved me, too.”

Steve’s face was like stone, and he looked away first, shoving his hands into his pockets.

“It’s more complicated than that.”

That was usually Bruce’s excuse for everything too, so Darcy rolled her eyes again.

“I swear I’m not just being a jackass,” he muttered.

Darcy shrugged a little, feeling his words pull on her heartstrings a little because he sounded tired, almost.

“You did it ‘cause you had to, right?”

Darcy tried to focus on where his eyes were and level his gaze.

“I get it, Steve. You just did what you thought was right.”

Steve just nodded, and Darcy felt her throat tighten and she itched to reach for his hand again.

She didn’t though, and the moment passed.

-

They pushed on, Steve pulled off his glasses when they were under some shade.

“You okay?”

“I miss him. Bucky.”

“I can’t imagine what you’ve been through.”

Darcy felt that itch again. She compromised, pushing away the fear of rejection.

“Do you want a hug?”

Steve blinked. “Uh, yeah. I’d like that.”

Darcy stepped closer to him, wrapping her arms around his middle and pressing herself against him, and smelt the fabric softener he used, mixed with his own sweat.

Steve’s hands fell on shoulders, and Darcy felt his chin rest on his head as he breathed deeply as he wound himself around her.

“This okay?” she murmured, somewhat muffled.

“Feels really good,” Steve said, and Darcy decided it was time to let go.

As she moved back, she didn’t look around to see if anyone they knew saw them embrace. Even asking Steve about that would have been like a body blow, and she wasn’t that mean.

“I wanna swim,” she announced, looking at the ocean behind them. “You wanna swim?”

Steve was quiet again but nodded, and then walked away to find a spot to put his shoes and hat.

Darcy handed him her hat and he set it down.

Darcy found her zipper and pulled. She happened to be wearing underneath her dress another swimsuit, but it wasn’t her original idea to swim with anyone else that day.

She desired a swim alone most of all, where eyes couldn’t see her pulling up her sleeveless outfit like a clumsy bimbo in a slapstick comedy.

She pulled at it, aware of Steve’s eyes falling to her chest.

“I look nice, I know,” Darcy said, trying to make light of it even though she was self-conscious.

Steve stayed silent and tugged his shirt over his head and tossed it aside.

Darcy honestly tried not to drool, but it was hard.

She walked toward the water, wading out until she no longer could touch the bottom with her toes, and leaned back, floating.

It was so peaceful, she sighed.

The splashing interrupted her moment of solace, but she didn’t mind.

He arrived at her side, running a hand through his wet hair.

“I love this place,” Darcy breathed, and she closed her eyes again.

She heard Steve laugh softly, and she was finally content.

 

 

 

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

Darcy spent the rest of the day alone, but she wasn’t afraid of it anymore. She didn’t stare at the couples having their weddings on the beach with any kind of wistfulness.

She’d look and wondered what that was like, but knew that probably wouldn’t happen with her.

And maybe she was okay with that.

She went to sleep alone, after another luau.

She didn’t see Bruce all day. He was right – it wasn’t her job here to look after him. She’d worry about that next week.

When she woke up, she sighed.

Her skin even felt different from all the salt water she was splashing around in, except it made her hair frizzier and crunchy.

She improvised a hair mask by Googling a few things, and then asked room service to send her an avocado and some honey.

She mashed it together, and then slowly began running it through her hair, letting it all sit for about half an hour before washing it out.

It took a while but it was all gone, and she let it dry on across her back and shoulders as she walked off for her late lunch.

It was her fourth day there. She was more than halfway through it all, and going back to the compound was the last thing she wanted to think about.

That and Jane. Whenever she thought of Jane, her stomach twisted and she didn’t know what to do.

Anything she told her about the trip, any reaction would be negative.

But it was Jane’s choice to leave, and not Darcy’s.

She clearly still held that against her, by how she spoke about Darcy being her assistant and _not_ Bruce’s.

Darcy focused on bonding with everyone, but deliberately didn’t give Steve the opportunity to be alone with her for too long.

It wasn’t hard to avoid him. She had plenty of excuses.

“We’re gonna go see turtles,” Steve announced, when he found Darcy after lunch, her book in her lap while she lay in a hammock.

“Have fun. I’m going shopping later.”

“Oh,” Steve said.

He seemed surprised for her to decline his invitation. He leaned against one of the trees that supported the hammock and tapped it a few times with his finger.

“Nat’s going shopping, too.”

Darcy’s eyebrows rose. She wasn’t sure about being around Natasha for too long. There were a lot of things she’d rather not admit aloud.

Like the fact that she’d slept with Steve and badly wanted to repeat it over and over again despite the fact that she didn’t want anything beyond a friendship with him.

If Natasha was as straight a shooter as Darcy presumed the spy to be, she was in big trouble.

“I’ll go find her and maybe you two can go together,” Steve added, after a pause.

Darcy lowered her sunglasses.

“Is she the type to pry about things?”

“Well, _yeah_.”

Steve admitting that made her stomach flip in panic, but she cleared her throat and pushed her glasses back up again.

“Then I’d rather go alone.”

“You know each other,” Steve said.

He looked down at her bare legs and then looked away, sighing softly.

Why was he intent on pushing her toward Natasha Romanoff of all people? As far as Darcy knew, they had very little in common.

“Why do you care?”

Darcy shut her book sharply, and got out of the hammock, letting it swing in the wind as she slipped her flip-flops back on.

 “I don’t,” Steve retorted. “Or I shouldn’t.”

Darcy rolled her eyes. “Fine. I’ll go talk to her.”

Steve’s hand dropped from the tree to his side. “Oh. Good.”

-

They caught a shuttle to another island where there were many designer brands, but Darcy was more interested in buying goofy or downright ugly knickknacks for her family and Jane.

She even thought to buy Erik some kind of snow globe if she could find one tacky enough to make him uncomfortable and hide it in a cupboard with his gaudy ones she’d sent from Norway and London.

Thinking of Erik made her think back to Jane, but she shoved the anxiety down and pretended spending time with Black Widow herself wasn’t intimidating as fuck.

When he approached Natasha to organize leaving together, Bruce was nowhere to be seen, but she didn’t ask about him until an hour into their expedition.

“You see Bruce today?”

“No,” Natasha answered, as if she’d been waiting for the question all day. “I think he’s in solitary.”

Darcy wondered what the hell he was up to if he wasn’t leaving his room.

“Did he seem…okay when you saw him last?”

A wicked thought sprang into Darcy’s head: _More than okay, I bet._

 She pushed it aside, studying Natasha’s face as they walked.

They both got frappes but Natasha had hardly touched hers. Darcy sipped her own and waited for the spy to tell her to mind her own business.

It would be understandable if she did.

“He’s never been one to excel in public,” Natasha admitted.

She shrugged one shoulder and looked into a shop window, tilting her head.

“I keep forgetting that he hates being touched,” Darcy admitted. “I don’t think I’m right for him.”

“Same,” Natasha murmured.

They looked at each other.

“Darcy, listen,” Natasha began.

Oh, no. Darcy looked away, blushing. She knew they were going to go where she didn’t want to. It was only matter of time before she’d be lying through her teeth.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Darcy said abruptly, her voice low. “Whatever you have to say about anything.”

The redhead looked confused. “Why not?”

Darcy let out a half laugh. “Uh, because it makes me feel weird?”

“Do I make you feel weird?”

“Yes,” Darcy said, looking her in the eye.

There was a beat, and then Natasha ducked into the store they were passing and Darcy stayed outside, her stomach twisting.

Natasha returned, a bag in one hand.

“I got the boots.”

“Oh,” Darcy said, and she blushed. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Natasha said. “Not my place. It’s a habit.”

“Being nosy is considered a habit, now?” Darcy asked, and Natasha smiled briefly, shrugging.

They kept walking, and Darcy wondered why the hell she didn’t just say what she was thinking.

“It’s hard, being alone.”

Natasha looked her way, and Darcy felt her eyes sting.

“Since Jane left, you mean?” Natasha asked.

Darcy nodded, and sniffed loudly. She wasn’t going to cry. It wasn’t Natasha’s responsibility to make her feel better.

“I used to think I was better being alone,” Natasha said.

She swung her bag a little as they walked.

“But not anymore?”

She wondered what code Natasha cracked, because Darcy wasn’t sure what she wanted.

If she was friends from now on with everyone she’d been meeting the past few days, life would feel fuller.

She would feel less apart from the world.

But it didn’t matter if those bonds were made if Bruce decided she wasn’t the right person for the job, and threw her out.

And finding other people to be around apart from relying solely on Jane felt like a betrayal.

Admitting that to herself, that she still felt that level of loyalty to Jane, made Darcy feel like a child.

“Over a year ago, when Steve and I met Sam, that’s when I stopped being so defensive.”

The mention of Steve made Darcy deliberately not look Natasha in the eye.

“For me it’s about reality,” Darcy said.

She swallowed.

“Thor really screwed everything up. Even though it changed my life. And I’m happy it did, just –”

Darcy let out a breath.

“I learned quickly that people get hurt, and people can’t always keep promises.”

Darcy knew she was risking a lot admitting all this.

Natasha’s face was unreadable.

“You can hurt people, too, Darcy. These things don’t just happen to people.”

Darcy narrowed her eyes slightly.

“You’re saying it was all Jane’s fault that all that shit happened - ?”

“I’m _saying_ ,” Natasha added. “That we all have choices.”

Darcy let that sink in, but eventually shook her head.

“None of this life ever felt like choice.”

Natasha nodded, and Darcy felt more at ease.

She wasn’t getting her head bitten off.

They spent the rest of their time together not talking too much about anything heavy.

-

When they returned to the hotel, Natasha told her she might see her at the luau.

Darcy noticed she made no mention of Bruce.

Feeling closer to the spy, Darcy decided to check on Bruce.

If he needed anything, she could help.

If he let her.

She knocked on his front door, but there was no reply.

Darcy looked over her shoulder at the sunset, and saw Sam and Steve laughing in the distance and drinking beers.

Kylie stood with them, and Darcy felt her stomach drop.

She turned away, her hands suddenly sweaty, but she knocked again.

Nothing.

She kept knocking until finally, she heard movement inside, and Bruce appeared, whipping the door open.

“Bruce.”

It wasn’t the time to call him boss. He looked dishevelled, his shirt rumpled and his face unshaven.

He turned and Darcy followed him, wringing her hands and then crossing her arms.

“You okay?”

“Who’s asking?” he grunted.

Was he drunk?

Darcy knew he wasn’t the type to indulge too often because he could potentially transform.

She didn’t smell alcohol.

“Me. And Natasha,” she answered.

She looked at the mess surrounding her. His suitcase looked like it exploded, with shirts and shorts strewn all over the room. Coffee mugs covered almost every surface except for the TV, which was on a news channel, but Bruce didn’t seem to be taking it in.

His glasses were on his pillow, and his toothbrush was on the floor – which Darcy accidently stood on before moving aside and keeping close to the doorway.

“I’m feeling super,” Bruce said, his voice flat. “As always.”

“Do you want a bigger room?”

“No,” he snapped. He shot her a look.

His jaw tightened. “So Nat sent you.”

“No. I wanted to see you. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m suffocating here.”

“So go home. I can organize –”

He cut her off with a wave of his hand. “No.”

Darcy didn’t mean to, but she huffed loud enough for him to hear.

He bristled at the sound.

She knew she’d gone too far.

“Why bother being here when you’re not having fun, Bruce?”

Darcy threw her arms up as she said this, and Bruce stalked over to the TV and changed it over.

“Nat.”

“Why aren’t you with her now?”

“Because she’s figuring out what I already told her, that we won’t work out.”

Darcy didn’t know what to say. She could argue, she could try to convince him he was wrong.

Would she even believe herself if she contradicted him?

“Just tell me if you need anything.”

She turned and left, and saw outside that Kylie was still beside Steve and laughing with him.

Darcy chose to kick him out of her room two nights ago.

She chose this.

She clenched her fists, her nails digging into her palm.

She did it long enough for her to focus on something else besides how happy Steve looked beside Kylie.

-

Darcy skipped the luau, sitting alone in her room with a bottle of champagne and her emails open.

Jane had sent nothing else.

Maybe she was waiting for Darcy to engage.

_It happened twice, actually._

She sent it off and drained her third glass. She wasn’t drunk, but that glass should push her past the tipsy, sluggish stage into sleepiness.

She slipped out of her room and walked down to the beach, barefoot.

Thor and Jane didn’t work out.

Bruce and Natasha were crumbling apart and they barely got started.

She waded out, wiping her face, pretending she wasn’t crying.

Things fall apart, and she needed to accept that. It wasn’t a hard pill to swallow if everyone else had helped her already to learn that.

She could imagine Jane already emailing back a reply:

_He will hurt you._

Kylie in Steve’s arms, the two of them in bed. That was all her mind would let her see.

Being jealous when she didn’t know Steve that well was sad on her part.

She needed thicker skin.

“Hey!”

She turned, and saw Sam at the shore.

“You’re kind of far out, Lewis.”

She swam back toward him, stepping onto the sand.

He looked genuinely concerned.

“I got something to ask you.”

“What is it?” Darcy’s voice was hoarse from her tears.

She hoped her eyes weren’t red. If anyone asked, she’d blame the salt water.

She dreaded whatever Sam was going to say.

Darcy looked down at her flip-flops on the sand and realized she’d forgotten her towel.

“You know Kylie? Is she in your surfing class?”

“What about her?”

She tried not to sound too affected by anything he said, but her heart was beating faster and she could feel herself quickly sobering up.

“Just wondering what you think about her.”

“For Steve?”

Sam opened his mouth, tilting his head to the side.

“No. For _me_. Why, has he said he’s interested?”

Darcy flopped on the sand, stretching her legs and feigning boredom.

“No. But Kylie thinks you’re both cute.”

“So she’ll have to decide if we both ask her out.”

Sam just rolled his eyes a little. “I know where that ends if Steve and me are after the same girl.”

Darcy flicked a bit of sand of her leg.

“Does he seem interested to you?”

Sam shrugged. “He’s kind of guarded when it comes to dating. Didn’t even tell me about proposing to Sharon until after they broke up.”

Darcy froze, her hand in the air.

“ _What?”_

She forgot she was meant to be nonchalant, because most likely Sam hadn’t heard anything about what happened between Steve and her.

She took a breath, and realized Sam was staring down at her.

“You didn’t know that, huh?” he said, and Darcy just blinked a few times, shaking her head.

He looked toward the water.

“Like I said – guarded.”

“Sharon said no?”

She asked because – well, why? Why was she trying to decipher this? What was she doing?

“She said yes.”

Darcy got up.

She was so shaken she knew she couldn’t do or say anything without giving everything away.

“News to me.”

Her voice was faint, but he seemed to hear her.

She said goodnight and fled to her room.

She finished the rest of the champagne, her TV blasting the Discovery Channel with no new messages from Jane.

 


	9. Chapter 9

Hungover in her hammock the next day, Darcy leafed through two different books, wishing she didn’t know what she knew now about Sharon and Steve.

Engaged – he was engaged to her and they broke up two months ago. Darcy was clearly not that special.

Not that he ever told her otherwise.

 _You’re amazing_ could just mean she was great in the sack. Darcy knew she was.

It didn’t make her something to write home about, though.

Steve hadn’t come by for her, and she hated that she was half waiting for him to.

She came to the conclusion that she was a terrible tourist. She was wasting this absolute fucking paradise on her own stupid insecurities.

It was just a fun thing to do together. Since when was she so hung up on sex?

The last time she hooked up with a guy before Steve was some barista named Jared who she never called back.

Counting it up in her head, she knew that was a year ago.

Maybe it was just the time apart from that kind of touch that made her crave it that badly with Steve.

She slammed her book shut and saw Sam walking toward her in the distance.

She moved from her laying position to sit up, and lowered her glasses at him.

“You’re coming cliff diving, Lewis!”

“Isn’t that kind of dangerous?” she drawled, her head pounding.

The Advil hadn’t kicked in yet.

“Kind of the point of it,” Sam retorted, shrugging. “You in?”

How likely was it she’d vomit in public? Darcy mulled it over.

“Okay.”

“Cool. See you after lunch.”

He tapped her shoulder and was off again, and Darcy looked toward the beach, sighing.

She hadn’t taken a single photo, which she knew she’d wanted to do earlier. She had nothing to brag about.

Sleeping with Steve was not something her cousins were likely to believe.

They were still convinced she was some kind of lab rat herself, like before when she signed up for a couple experiments in college.

-

After she ate lunch in her room and didn’t throw up anything, Darcy walked off to the lobby wearing nearly exactly the same outfit as when they went hiking and spied Sam, Steve and Natasha together.

No sign of Bruce.

“Hey,” Darcy said softly, smiling at Natasha first and then Sam and Steve.

She didn’t plan to stand close to Steve, it just kind of happened and she knew if she darted away they’d see her discomfort immediately.

She stood still, looking at her emails on her phone.

Jane was ignoring her.

“Excited?” Natasha asked, and Darcy looked up from her screen and nodded.

“Sure. I’ve never done it before.”

“I’ve jumped out of planes. Piece of cake,” Natasha said. “I like your shirt.”

It was a tacky tie-dye one she and Jane made together when data collection was especially boring one summer three years ago.

Darcy had tied it so it cinched her waist like a few days ago and felt herself blush.

“Thanks. Your skin is amazing.”

The interaction made Sam laugh out loud. Natasha shot him a sharp look.

“ _Thank_ _you_ , Darcy.”

She sounded sincere. Steve didn’t say anything, just shifted beside Darcy.

“Should Bruce be worried?” Sam muttered, and Natasha’s eyes flashed and she took a step toward him.

“Cut it out,” Steve said, but he was soft-spoken and practised.

Without meaning to, Darcy caught his eye but he looked away, unperturbed.

This was normal, Darcy had just witnessed how conflicts usually went with these three.

So maybe if she acted one way today, Sam would tease her openly about Steve.

And then what was she supposed to do?

“I might not actually jump when we get there,” she admitted aloud, and everyone looked at her. “I’ll just like the views.”

“Or maybe we can just pull you down with us,” Sam said, and Darcy knew he was only half serious.

They took a shuttle and then walked along a track, Natasha walking with Darcy while Steve and Sam walked ahead.

It kind of felt like Darcy’s last hike, except her headache, though it was starting to seep away, made her wince several times while they climbed toward the cliffs.

When they all stopped at the top, Darcy looked over the side and felt a little sick.

The urge to plunge below was strong despite her fear.

Damn her lizard brain, the same one that made her stare at Steve’s profile as she stood beside him.

“No rocks, as far as I can tell,” he murmured, and Darcy hummed her approval.

“Awesome. I won’t die.”

“You wouldn’t die from this height anyway, Lewis,” Sam said, raising an eyebrow.

“The guidebook I read said this spot’s a nine on the scale.”

Darcy shot Sam a look, one hand on her hip.

“Nine out of ten. It’s a good spot,” he added.

“He’s lying. He read a blog, not a guidebook,” Natasha muttered, and then winked at Darcy before taking the few steps and then dropping to the water below.

Darcy watched as she fell, making an impressive splash in the water.

She made that look easy, resurfacing and throwing her hair back, smiling up at them.

“Didn’t realize it was a race,” Steve said, frowning.

“’Course it is!”

Sam jumped, and Darcy leaned over the edge to see him make a similar, carefree fall toward the water.

Steve’s hand shot out to hold Darcy back, and she saw him move his arm back the second he accidentally brushed her chest.

“Sorry. Thought you might fall by accident,” he muttered.

The two below were laughing and splashing, Steve and Darcy forgotten.

“Looks like you lost,” Darcy said.

“What about you, you game?” Steve asked, and Darcy giggled.

“Look at you, sounding like you’re from this century,” Darcy quipped. “I’m game.”

She’d just about forgotten about Sharon until he held out a hand.

“Together?”

Darcy felt her pulse quicken. She pushed back the warning.

She was about to jump off a cliff after all. It was enough of an excuse to hold hands.

And they were friends.

She took his hand, and she looked up at him.

“What now?”

“We jump.”

They took the three steps to push over the edge, and they were in the air, and Darcy felt herself scream.

She knew it was only a few seconds, but it felt so much longer, especially when the ground (or the water) didn’t seem to hit until after she’d convinced herself the feeling of falling could be forever.

She hit the water, plunging deep below, like a stone and letting go of Steve.

No sound but the rush of water, and then she pushed back, swimming toward the surface.

She breached it, gulping the air.

Sam and Natasha were cheering her and clapping.

“Jesus Christ,” Darcy declared, and she started laughing.

Awkward in keeping her head above the water, she thrashed, before she remembered Steve was beside her and felt for his hand, and he grasped her arm.

She moved toward him, letting herself be seen closer to him, his arm around her waist and keeping her to his side.

She shivered, and she supposed it was the nerves.

“What about your phone?” Steve asked, concerned.

“Waterproof,” Darcy breathed, and then adjusted so her arm was draped across his shoulders.

Natasha and Sam didn’t say anything about it, didn’t tease, and Darcy felt relieved.

Being in the water fully clothed felt weird, but Darcy could still feel every contour of Steve’s body that she touched.

Their faces were only a few inches apart, and Darcy swallowed, feeling vulnerable whenever she looked into his eyes.

She wanted to kiss him, but knew that if she did, she’d think of him and Sharon and how he probably missed her.

“Let’s go again,” Natasha said to Sam, and Darcy knew she’d thank her later for giving them space.

They began to swim away toward the corner that connected to the path back up, and Steve sighed, Darcy feeling his breath on her wet skin.

“I can’t believe we’re going home the day after tomorrow,” he murmured.

His body had relaxed, he wasn’t tense at all in how he spoke when he was alone with her. Maybe clinging to him was a bad idea if he didn’t want anybody else to see.

They were going home. Darcy hadn’t taken any photos she liked.

She meant to take one of the sunset at least, and vowed she would tonight.

“Can you take a photo of me?” she asked, and Steve seemed surprised.

“On your phone?”

Darcy felt around her pocket for it, and pulled it out.

The touchscreen was harder to use wet, but she showed Steve how to take a photo, though he insisted he already knew how.

“I just wasn’t sure, Grandpa,” Darcy teased. “Your generation can sometimes be resistant to technology.”

Steve looked like he was trying not to smile. “You know what - ?”

“What?” Darcy countered.

He moved the short distance to kiss her, and she laughed a little against his mouth, before the kiss deepened, and she felt the warmth of desire in her gut.

She pulled back, panting a little.

“Steve –”

“I just want to kiss you all the time,” he said, and Darcy swallowed, her lips parted.

She wasn’t sure what to say or do. Instead she kissed him again, wishing they could do this on the sand without the threat of drowning.

He kissed her neck and grazed his teeth against her skin, and she whimpered.

“I don’t want to go home,” he mumbled, and then his arms were around her, pressing her to his wet clothes. His forehead pressed against her shoulder.

“Then don’t,” she whispered, not thinking. “Stay here with me.”

There was a splash, and Steve let go of her as Sam resurfaced, smiling.

“I was aiming for you two but I just missed,” he teased, though Darcy didn’t have the heart to smile.

She floated a little. “I think I want to get out before I turn into a prune.”

-

Darcy got back to the hotel an hour later, having walked and taken photos of the view with Natasha, Steve and Sam for once were walking behind them.

If they were talking about Darcy, she didn’t want to know.

She felt very, very scared and she wasn’t sure how to make it stop.

What she said earlier was stupid and didn’t even make any sense. Why would Steve of all people leave his life for something in Hawaii?

Nothing was a sure thing anymore.

Thor leaving and Bucky turning up were reasons enough to believe that.

Natasha walked arm in arm with her, and she knew the redhead was looking for Bruce, to see if he wanted to see anyone that day.

There was a flicker of hurt across Natasha’s face when there was no sign of him, and Darcy saw the switch take place and Natasha turned back to warm and relaxed.

“I need a shower,” she murmured, and Darcy wondered if she meant to go somewhere to cry, or to find Bruce.

Or both, because Darcy wouldn’t blame her if she decided to confront him.

Sam said the same, promising to see everyone at dinner.

That left Steve and Darcy in the lobby.

“Come to my room later,” Steve said, and Darcy avoided his gaze.

“This is…”

She swallowed, blinking.

“What is it?” Steve asked, and he slid her hand into his.

“Bad. Really bad,” she murmured. “I shouldn’t.”

“I like you,” he said.

Darcy felt her eyes prickle, dreading him ever saying something like that. It was like pulling a thorn out of her foot.

She looked up at him.

“No, I – it’s more than that, Darcy, I –”

“I can’t.”

Her voice broke with emotion and Steve looked miserable.

“Okay.”

She pulled her hand away. “I just can’t. I’m sorry.”

She swiped at her eyes, taking a step away from him.

“You don’t have to say sorry,” he said.

It was like he’d been waiting for her to say no that time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	10. Chapter 10

Darcy avoided the luau but made sure to take photos of the sunset and sat by the beach with only her dinner for company.

She was going to end up unemployed and friendless, and she’d have to call her mom and beg her to take her in until she got a new job.

Anything that happened on the compound she wasn’t allowed to put on her resume so it wasn’t like she was going to get a good reference out of Bruce.

She looked at her phone and glared at her email inbox, which had stayed the same for ages.

She chose to call Jane instead of waiting around any longer.

She may as well burn every bridge. She’d done well so far on this trip.

She lay down her watermelon rind as she waited for Jane to pick up.

“Hey.”

Darcy could do nothing but feel everything all over again.

“Darcy?”

“Yeah. Hi,” she murmured. “I’m fucking everything up.”

“What happened with Steve?”

“Nothing. I mean. We had sex twice. Then I freaked out – ”

“What did he do?”

“Nothing,” Darcy said again, biting her lip. “He’s the best guy ever.”

She huffed and then her vision blurred from her tears. “He was engaged.”

She heard Jane let out a breath. “I feel like I’m a totally biased person to ask about relationships with an Avenger, but it doesn’t sound great.”

“I know, hence why I backed the fuck away just before he got the chance to tell me he’s in love with me.”

There was a pause.

“You’re right. If you’re about to tell me he’ll hurt me, ‘cause he said pretty much the same.”

Jane sounded a little hurt. “Darcy, I’m trying to be there for you when you do this kind of stuff.”

“Kind of stuff.” Darcy repeated it flatly.

“Don’t be like that. I just mean everything you’ve ever done I’ve supported. But it gets to a point where I can’t give you any more advice because you won’t take it.”

“Like what?”

She wanted to know. Feeling like Jane was keeping something from her would make her want to track her down in London and scream in her face.

“Buying your taser. Ian. Being my intern in the first place.”

Darcy grimaced. She knew she wasn’t the best fit for Jane in the beginning, but she felt like they were close enough for Jane to accept her for who she was.

“Cool,” she murmured, and she heard Jane sigh.

“I didn’t mean that. I meant –”

“It’s okay, Jane. It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not.”

“It’s not your responsibility anymore to look after me.”

She hung up, and then left the beach.

-

She stalked toward Bruce’s door and pounded her fist on the wood until he answered.

He looked surprised to see her. He stared down at her glaring eyes.

“If you want me to resign, fine. I’m gone. We’ll get back to the compound in two days and I’ll pack up my stuff and fuck off.”

Bruce frowned. “Is this because of Natasha?”

“You make me feel like a stupid little kid. It’s not my fault you hate yourself. Stop acting like it is.”

“Don’t talk to me like that. You have no idea what I’ve been through.”

They were close to yelling with anyone around them able to hear, but Darcy was beyond caring.

“You don’t let me _have_ any idea, so how could I know anything about you?”

Darcy turned her heel and walked away, wondering who else she might like to confront.

-

She found Steve’s room. It took asking Natasha, but Darcy didn’t mind anymore who knew where she went or who with.

Steve smiled when he saw her, but a second later his face fell.

“What’s wrong?”

She slammed the door behind her and glared at him. “Why didn’t you tell me about Sharon?”

He still looked confused.

“Were you and Sharon engaged?”

Realization dawned on his face and he looked away, sighing.

“Yeah.”

Darcy looked around his room. It was neater than hers, and he had a beer open on his bedside table. It looked like he was waiting for her.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I didn’t want to upset you.”

“Didn’t work,” she murmured, though there was little sting left in her tone.

She was just worn out by the emotions that ran though her so rapidly.

She saw he’d lit a candle and blinked.

“There wasn’t a ring. We just talked about it. We agreed. Then I was away for four months and she knew it wasn’t going to change.”

Darcy nodded.

“I’m gonna sit down,” he said, and sat on the edge of his bed. “I’m beat. I still haven’t got over the time difference.”

Darcy nodded again dumbly and let the information roll over in her head.

“Why didn’t you fight for her the second you got back?”

“I did,” Steve said. “Didn’t work.”

“Didn’t work,” Darcy echoed, and she looked at the ceiling.

“I wasn’t looking for it, what happened with us. But I don’t regret it.”

Darcy looked at him, and his stare was intense, sincere.

“I really, really liked our time together.”

“Me, too,” she breathed. “It was the best time. And not just because you’re really great in bed.”

Steve let out a short laugh. “I’m sure that’s not true.”

“No, Steve, I’m serious,” she insisted, and stepped closer to him so that she stood over him. “Nobody has made me feel that way before.”

She saw the bob of Steve’s throat.

“Believe it or not I didn’t actually come here to fuck you. I thought we’d fight and then I’d never speak to you again.”

She looked at his mouth, and rose her hands to touch his face, tracing his lips with her fingers.

“If you want Sharon, go get her.”

Steve caught her wrists and she looked into his eyes.

“I don’t want her. I want you.”

He sounded so sure, that Darcy began to tear up, knowing she had been fighting everything she felt for him for days.

Just like the cliffs earlier she was plunging further down toward the inevitable, the moment stretched out and terrifying.

Steve let go of her wrists, wrapping his arms around her middle and pressing his face into her stomach, breathing heavily.

He pushed the material of her shirt up with his nose and kissed her stomach, making her want to clamp her legs together.

Seconds later, he had turned them around so that she lay on her back, her legs dangling over the edge of the bed, while he crouched on the floor, kissing his way down.

He undid her shorts and pulled them down, tossing them away.

Her bikini bottoms came next.

Darcy stared at the ceiling.

He kissed her thighs, shoulders pushing her legs apart so she lay open for him to see and feel.

And taste.

The second his lips rested on her slit her hips canted, and she groaned.

“Sorry, I just - ” Darcy whispered frantically, bordering on nonsense. “Keep going.”

Steve chuckled softly, his hot breath on her skin making her tingle.

He slipped his tongue between her folds, and Darcy covered her face, feeling like she couldn’t handle watching him when his mouth was on her like that.

With each stroke of his tongue as it dipped inside her, her thighs shook. Darcy wriggled, her toes beginning to curl.

Her breathing was shallow, and her cheeks were hot and flushed.

She knew she had to be bright red by now. She pulled off her shirt, which was damp with sweat. She let her chin fall to her chest as she looked toward him one more, and saw that Steve’s eyes were closed, lost in his quest.

She laying back down, moaning as he sucked her clit into her mouth.

He was tender and slow. He was drawing this out as long as possible.

He kissed, licked, sucked, pushed his tongue in as far as he physically could. He was fucking her with his mouth, and she couldn’t keep still, clenching, and whimpering once he became relentless.

Darcy dug her heels in, her hands falling to Steve’s scalp and pulling.

His soft laugh vibrated through her. He came up for air, his hair mussed and mouth shining with Darcy’s blatant arousal.

She could smell it on his skin.

He was so beautiful, and she knew that the look in his eyes showed devotion and longing.

“Am I doing a good job?” he murmured, and Darcy felt her chest tighten.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” she returned.

Steve just laughed again, and rested his head on her thigh for a few seconds before returning to licking her clit in small circles, his two fingers dipping inside.

“Jesus,” Darcy hissed, as he sucked hard, fingers beginning to pump inside.

She could hear how wet she was. It was almost enough to make her embarrassed, but she knew she’d never felt more at ease in her life.

“Don’t pretend like you don’t know exactly what you’re doing – _ah!”_

She tensed and came, her hips lifting from the mattress, a wave of hot release seeping to every edge of her, and she cried out something unintelligible.

She continued to tremble, euphoria washing over her.

She opened her eyes and registered Steve moving up toward her, still fully clothed, his soft shirt against her skin as he kissed her chest.

He took one nipple in his mouth and Darcy hissed, wanting to clamp her legs together.

She pulled him up by the shoulders, and kissed him, biting a little and making Steve groan against her mouth.

The kissing became a flurry of hands, tongue and lips. Darcy pushed against Steve’s chest and he understood, falling backwards so that she could straddle him.

His hands slipped to her hips, his eyes dark and full of want.

Darcy could see how hard he was, and licked her lips, her hands going toward his stomach to pull up his t-shirt.

Steve obliged, pulling it off and tossing it aside, Darcy’s hands immediately resting on the solid muscle and sighing.

“Carved from marble,” she murmured, thinking of a Mills & Boon novel.

Her fingers slipped to his belt buckle and began to undo it, Steve’s eyes glued to her hands.

He shifted his hips a little so she could pull his shorts partway down.

His boxer briefs, which were white, would have been otherwise pristine if there wasn’t a wet patch on one side where his cock rested against his stomach.

She saw the bob of Steve’s throat as he watched her take the image in, and then she pulled his underwear down, his cock free.

“What are you doing?” he asked, though he seemed to understand what was about to happen, because his fists were already gripping the covers in anticipation.

Darcy dipped below, taking his cock in her hand.

She simply looked at it, since the last two times they had been together she hadn’t properly investigated.

“I just want to see,” she whispered.

Her breath must be close enough to feel, because Steve’s cock twitched in interest.

She turned her head to the side to study the ridges, the shiny tip and the shape of him when she pulled back the foreskin.

Her tongue darted out, experimenting.

He tasted vaguely salty, and Steve bucked his hips, beginning to breathe heavily out of his nose.

Darcy threw her hair over on shoulder and then put his cock on her tongue, letting it slide only partway into her mouth.

Steve’s breath altered to shuddering as she worked him in slowly.

He hit the back of her throat and her fingers fell to between Steve’s legs, gently cradling his balls.

She waited, relaxing into it.

She wasn’t used to someone this big in her mouth.

Her eyes watered, but she pushed past it, her throat tightening around him and then she drew back, sucking as hard as she could, her tongue dragging across the underside of his cock.

She did it again three more times, as Steve became progressively louder and desperate.

At one point his hand was in her hair. He paused, until Darcy looked up and nodded, encouraging him.

“You’re getting off on this, aren’t you?” Steve said, his voice strained.

Darcy just nodded again, pulling off him completely and letting his cock fall back, slapping his stomach.

“You want to fuck my mouth?”

She could have been asking about the weather, but a dark look came across Steve’s face at her fake nonchalance, and his grip tightened a little in her hair, making her scalp tingle and a wicked smile spread across her face.

“You don’t need to be asked twice.”

She took him to the back of her throat again, managing to keep her eyes open, and then she sighed, loosening everything.

Steve moved very slightly, almost undetectable. Darcy’s hand moved to his balls again.

Inspired, Steve managed a few thrusts before pulling her off completely, strings of spit between her mouth and his dick.

She was gasping, but smiling.

Steve pulled her roughly up to meet him and kissed her like he was trying to bruise, his tongue dominating her mouth as he lined them up.

Darcy remembered just in time.

“Wait, wait! Condom.”

This seemed to bring him back to Earth, and Steve blinked a couple times, composing himself.

“Right. Right,” he said quickly, and then pulled away to retrieve one from his bedside table.

When he turned back to her, Darcy had crawled up beside him, taking his beer and sipping it a little before pushing the bottle toward his lips.

He chuckled a little, taking a swig before swallowing and wiping his mouth with a hand.

Darcy finished his beer, sitting on her knees and watching Steve roll the condom on.

He was suddenly on her again, making her fall backwards, and the empty beer bottle fell with a thud to the floor and rolled away.

She laughed, and he flipped her onto her stomach.

He kissed her shoulders, her back. He kissed all the way down to the cleft of her ass, and she gasped a little, watching his descent.

He grazed his teeth on one butt cheek, Darcy’s bottom lip between her teeth.

He returned to kiss her face, lining them up.

Once he pushed inside, his forehead fell to her shoulder and they moaned together.

One of his hands held her in place, the other rested on her left breast and kneaded it.

“You better start moving,” she hissed, and he pulled back before slamming against her ass.

Darcy cried out, finding that she was close to coming already with every drag of his cock.

She whimpered, and then fell forward so that her stomach was against the bed with her ass in the air.

Hardly dignified in any other circumstance, but she’d never been more turned-on in her life.

She looked over at Steve, whose eyes were on the line of her back, and then his gaze swivelled to his cock moving in and out of her.

“Oh, my God,” Darcy moaned, hands scrambling for purchase.

She couldn’t be quiet. It just wasn’t physically possible with Steve so deep inside her.

As he began to speed up, she got louder, until she covered her mouth with her hand and squeezed her eyes shut.

She came, her voice a hoarse, strangled sound. She was exhausted, her legs aching and her body covered in sweat.

She pushed the hair out of her eyes and Steve pulled out.

He turned her over and he was on top of her again in seconds, crowding her against the mattress.

It was so intimate Darcy’s eyes watered as he wrapped her legs around him, Steve pushing into her and kissing her breathless.

His erratic thrusts were enough to distract her when she saw the look on his face – something he must have kept hidden until now.

He was so full of whatever he felt that he looked choked up by it.

“I’m gonna come,” he said, breath huffing.

“Come for me,” she whispered, and tightened her legs around him.

The rock of their hips was urgent, and she thought he might break her apart if he went on much further.

How could something so bad for her feel so perfect?

Darcy pushed the thoughts away, but felt tears start to fall.

One hand fell to the covers and Steve tore it as he tensed up, and with two hard final thrusts, he came, pushed inside her as far as possible.

“Hmm,” Darcy hummed dreamily. She waited, their breaths gradually slowing.

She could feel the sweat cooling on her skin, and reality began to set in.

She didn’t know why she really came there.

She began to cry, and covered her mouth. She was overwhelmed by the sudden sorrow like it was a blow to her stomach.

Steve pulled out, looking horrified.

“Darcy, sweetheart. What’s wrong?”

“I’m gonna fuck this up,” Darcy hiccupped, and then Steve gathered her into his arms and rocked her as she sobbed.

He stroked her hair, attempting to soothe her.

“You’re not. You’re doing everything so right you don’t even understand.”

“What?” Darcy mumbled. “What do you mean?”

Steve swallowed, suddenly hesitant. “You make me feel like I can do this.”

Do what? Darcy thought of Sharon.

“You mean be a better person for her?”

She didn’t have to specify who she meant, because Steve shook his head, kissing her mouth.

“Stop it, stop it,” he kept saying.

Darcy sniffled, frightened again like earlier that day.

She moved, wanting to get up. Steve let her, looking miserable.

“Darcy – ”

She looked at him, halfway to the bathroom door.

“I need to pee. And shower,” Darcy replied, cutting him off.

-

When she returned ten minutes later, Steve lay on the bed with his arms behind his head.

Darcy got the impression he was watching the door.

“Do you think you shouldn’t stay?”

He sounded almost cold. Darcy swallowed.

“I don’t know. I don’t –”

She let out a sigh. She walked over to the bed and pulled on her bikini bottoms and her shirt.

“I don’t want to sleep alone,” she finished, and Steve’s face changed.

She turned off the light and joined him on the bed, and he wrapped an arm around her, her chin resting on his chest.

“Did you mean what you said?” Steve asked, his voice quiet.

Darcy lifted her head in the dark, but she couldn’t see his expression.

“What?”

“When I said I didn’t want to leave.”

“Nobody wants to _leave_ Hawaii,” Darcy retorted.

Steve sighed. “Darcy.”

“I know, I know,” she added. “I did mean it. Stay here with me.”

“What would we do?”

“Stay in bed for a few days at least. Swim. Have sex in the ocean. Have sex outdoors –”

“What about owning a restaurant?” Steve asked, and seemed to be loosening up.

“Can you even cook?” Darcy asked, and he pinched her side playfully, making her giggle.

“Not really.”

Darcy laughed, and curled a leg around his.

The silence between them felt heavy with things unsaid.

“Bruce’s is gonna fire me.”

The words fell out and Darcy felt her chest tighten with emotion.

“Why do you think that?”

“We had a fight. But I’ll be fine.”

Steve stroked her arm. “Sweetheart, you don’t sound sure.”

“Because _nothing_ is sure,” she whispered. “Thor taught me that.”

Steve sighed, and Darcy felt the heaviness grow.

“You warned me, too,” she continued.

Darcy could picture his jaw ticking, and Steve’s urge to cross his arms.

“I did.”

So what were they doing? Darcy was amazed by how good everything felt only minutes ago, and now she was back to being afraid and dreading home.

“Listen,” she murmured. “Thor was a brother to me. And he _left_. But I don’t hold that against him. I know what he is and what he has to do.”

Steve stirred. “I had no idea you were that close.”

Darcy nodded, before remembering he couldn’t see her. “Yeah, well – it sucks.”

“Isn’t it worth it, though?” Steve asked, and Darcy felt herself bristle. “To feel something instead of nothing?”

Darcy swallowed, not sure how to reply.

She bit her lip.

She moved toward the lamp and switched it on, flooding the room with a yellow light, and Steve squinted for a couple seconds as he adjusted.

“You leaving?” he asked, and Darcy felt his words go straight to her guts.

They churned and she felt uneasy.

“I don’t want to go. But I want us to stay friends.”

She knew what she said made little sense. Steve considered her words.

“I don’t want to be friends. I don’t even think I could try.”

Darcy felt her eyes sting.

“It hurts too fuckin’ much.”

The anxiety roiling in her gut, Darcy just nodded, and then switched off the light again.

She pulled back the covers and settled beside him, curling up.

They lay in silence before Darcy drifted to sleep.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	11. Chapter 11

The next morning, Darcy woke with her head resting on Steve’s shoulder, their arms wrapped around each other.

At some point during the night, Steve had joined her under the blankets.

What woke them was a sharp knock on the door.

“Steve! Come on, man. Rise and shine.”

Darcy scrambled away from Steve, pulling the blankets around her with her eyes on his locked door.

Steve turned over.

“I’ll see you at breakfast,” he called, and Darcy’s heartbeat began to slow down.

“Okay. Can you go find Lewis, too? We should do another hike.”

Darcy and Steve looked at each other.

“Sure,” Steve called.

Sam walked off, and Darcy let out a long breath.

Steve got out of bed, smelling of sex and his own musky scent.

He pulled a clean shirt on as Darcy began to button up her shorts.

“You stayed all night,” he said, and Darcy nodded.

“Yeah, it was nice,” she said, avoiding his gaze.

 _“Nice?”_ he repeated, and she knew he was imitating her, teasing her lightly.

“It was perfect,” Darcy admitted, and she looked his way, making him pause with his hands on his belt.

He was on her in seconds, and soon his hand covered her mouth as he took her from behind again on their unmade bed.

He reduced her to a quivering mess, pulling out to come on her back.

They somehow decided together to forego a condom without talking about it.

Steve panted, kissing the back of her head and moving aside to find her something to clean herself with.

Darcy felt drunk in the afterglow, and before she felt like she was possessed.

In the seconds after she mopped herself up and threw aside the tissues, Steve became withdrawn.

“I should shower. Go to breakfast before Sam comes looking for me,” he murmured.

“Yeah. Me, too.”

Steve nodded.

“But in my room,” Darcy added, and Steve just nodded again, accepting her choice for what it was.

He didn’t argue, didn’t even ask her to stay.

Maybe he knew he’d be rejected, and it made Darcy’s heart ache.

“I can’t be your friend, sweetheart,” he said, and she just nodded back.

“Okay,” she said.

-

After, she only cried when she accidentally cut her leg while shaving in the shower.

It was like the floodgates had opened, and she kept herself away from the eatery all morning, her eyes puffy behind her sunglasses.

-

Her nose was in a book most of the day, the ocean in front of her.

Soon after a waiter handed her a margarita, Darcy heard the crunch of footsteps in the sand, and looked over.

Bruce was standing there, looking shy.

“Bruce?” she asked, unsure if he meant to be there.

“We should talk.”

She felt her heart sink like a stone. “I know what you’re going to say.”

“No, you don’t,” he insisted, and then she felt his grip on her wrist as he pulled her up from her chair, despite the indignant sounds she was making.

“What the _hell_ , boss?”

The word slipped out and she felt like such a fool. He was dragging her off to fire her and she was calling him that dumb pet name anyway.

Darcy allowed him to pull her along, because she didn’t want people to hear their conversation anyway.

There was a small redheaded child staring up at them as they passed, his beach ball almost eclipsing his entire face.

They got to Bruce’s room and he finally let go, the door shutting behind Darcy.

She was astonished to see that the room was spotless, no longer the squalor from last time she was there.

And it just occurred to her that Bruce Banner who hated touching had dragged her across the beach with his fingers wrapped around her bare wrist.

“I owe you an apology,” he said, and Darcy gave him a sidewards glance.

“Why?” she tested, narrowing one eye.

She pushed her glasses up her head, waiting.

“I was an asshole, and you deserve better.”

“Go on.”

“And – you’re right. I shouldn’t take stuff out on you, you’re just a kid.”

“I’m twenty-six,” she retorted, but felt a small smile spread across her face despite herself.

“Like I said, you’re a kid,” Bruce said, but he was teasing.

What the fuck had happened to him?

“Bruce, you think I’m having the time of my life?” she said, and he shrugged.

“Well, what were your twenties like?” she asked, and he shrugged again.

“Terrible,” he said.

“There you go. You can envy my youth all you want, but I’m not exactly flourishing.”

Darcy rolled her eyes at herself, and Bruce frowned.

“Are you okay?”

“No.” She gave a teary smile. “No, I’m really _not_ okay, boss.”

To top it all off, Bruce pulled her into a tight hug as she sobbed, and did not let go for some time.

“It’s Steve.”

He nodded. “And you’re scared shitless.”

“Yes.”

She pulled back, and Bruce wiped a tear from her face with a thumb.

“Why are you being so nice to me?”

“Because you’re letting me. And I owe you about a thousand percent more of it.”

Darcy half sobbed, half laughed as she whispered, “Do you want me to make an Excel spreadsheet of how much niceness you owe me, boss?”

They laughed, and Darcy patted his shoulder, moving away.

“It was Natasha. But mostly you,” Bruce explained.

He swallowed a couple of times. “I went to the luau finally last night and you weren’t there and I realized I missed you.”

Darcy felt something bloom in her chest.

“So I’m not fired?”

“Why the _fuck_ ,” Bruce said, sharply, “would I fire you, Darcy Lewis?”

-

Alone again in her room, Darcy unlocked her phone. Jane had emailed her.

_Please call me._

Darcy felt panic rise in her chest.

Jane picked up after just a couple rings.

“Hey, are you okay?” Darcy asked, their fighting forgotten.

“I’m so sorry,” Jane sobbed on the other end, and Darcy chuckled.

“How many hours without sleep are we on, Doctor?”

“Forty. I think I’m starting to see spots.”

“Then go to bed.”

“I was worried about you, bitch,” Jane hissed, and Darcy knew she meant nothing by it.

She chuckled again.

“I spoke to Bruce. I’m staying at my post,” she murmured.

She walked over to her window and pushed away the curtain.

Steve was outside playing volleyball with Sam and Natasha.

Bruce lingered by the sidelines, sitting and clapping encouragement.

Darcy felt her heart soar before guilt set in.

“And I love Steve.”

Jane stopped crying and sniffled loudly. “Obviously. Why else would you be so upset about it?”

“I figured I was making the right choice.”

“There is no _right_ choice, Darcy,” Jane said. “You think I wasn’t scared when I met Thor?”

Darcy swallowed, her throat thick.

“But we got so hurt. I miss him so much,” Darcy whispered, starting to sniffle as well.

“I wouldn’t change any of it. Not for all the stars in the galaxy, Darce.”

Darcy let out a little laugh, feeling everything at once.

When they hung up, Jane promising to sleep soon and call her later, Darcy looked out the window again and clenched one fist.

She took a deep breath, and left.

She walked right up to her friends playing in the sand, and called out.

“Steve! Hey – just – could you – ?”

Steve turned, looking at her.

“Can you come here a sec?”

Darcy’s heart was hammering, her palms sweaty, but she had to – she _had to_ do it.

Steve looked wide-eyed but didn’t hesitate, dropping the ball in the sand and walked over to her.

She knew everyone was staring but she didn’t care. She took his hands in hers and stood on tiptoe, tilting her head toward him.

“Is this okay?” she whispered.

Steve stared. “Are you kidding me, doll?”

She smiled, and then kissed him, Steve’s arms wrapping around her waist.

There were whoops around them, and Darcy began to giggle.

“Alright, that’s enough,” Steve said, his head turned toward everybody else.

Darcy kissed his neck.

“You can take five, Cap,” Sam said, one eyebrow raised. “Or the rest of the _day_.”

Steve scooped Darcy up and carried her off, her legs swinging.

“I love you,” she said, and Steve blinked. His eyes were shining.

“I love you, too, Darcy. I love you so much.”

They kissed, and then he set her down so they call walk off together hand in hand.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading <333333333


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